Kurses and Krystals
by Plazmataz
Summary: A Krystal/Kursed story taking place right where SFC left off. Filled with intrigue, mystery, and embattled romance! New chapter, finally.
1. Chapter 1

If you were to walk the streets of Kew City after midnight, you would see very few women. Perhaps, if you knew where to look, you'd find a drunken prostitute tripping through a back road. She'd look at you with a sideways glare, wondering if you'd pull a wad of cash for her services, or a gun for the same. You'd carry on past her, and, if you managed to stay in well-lit areas, you'd survive to find one of the only businesses open at such an unholy hour—a bar. In here, you could get a hold of whatever you needed, be it a drink, a drug, a beating, or a bounty hunter. But, you'd still find no women. Except, perhaps, one.

In a certain bar on the far southern side of town, a violet-furred vixen walked through the double-doors, a fearsome air of confidence and complacency about her stride. She walked straight past mobsters exchanging packages, through clusters of idiots crowded around con artists, and around addicts clinging to the card table. Her hair was bound in a single, long, flowing ponytail and dark sunglasses adorned her pointed face. A heavy jacket hung loosely from her shoulders, opening infinite possibilities for weapon concealment. When she approached the bartender, a darkly colored lizard, he put the four bottles he was carrying down on the bar.

"You're the new barkeep, then?" he asked, seemingly amused by Krystal's gender.

"Unless you want to stay here all night, then, yes, I am," said Krystal without a trace of any accent she'd had previously.

The little man looked reproachful of Krystal's sarcasm, but replied, "I'll be finished in a moment," motioning to an empty table nearby.

Krystal took the seat, and looked around the bar with a keen interest, imagining things as they would be ten or fifteen minutes in the future. The bar had only ten seats. This was good—less to keep track of. One seat had a homeless dog in it, and he'd likely leave soon for lack of funds. Two liquored-up mobsters were having a ball in seats three and four, rocking back and forth in a piercing fit of laughter. There was an odd little ape in the sixth seat, and he appeared to be drinking a tall glass of milk (although Krystal suspected it was something far more sinister). Seat eight held a dirty dog in a disheveled suit, and he kept his head low to the table while he nursed a small glass of ale. Seat ten, however, was empty. Krystal made a mental note that this barstool would be the one to keep an eye on.

Her keen study was broken by a dishtowel that came flying at her. When she'd pulled it off her face, the bartender stood in front of her, saying, "Good luck, miss," clearly not expecting to see her alive again. Krystal suppressed the urge to stuff the dishtowel down the lizard's throat, and took her place behind the bar while the man swaggered out the doors. Krystal cracked her knuckles and prepared to serve drinks for the first, and probably last time in her life.

The few uninterrupted minutes went by quite easily. For the most part, the folks at the bar just asked for more of whatever was in their glasses (the ape, as it turned out, was drinking a malt beer stirred into melted ice cream). Krystal had the pleasure of telling one passerby to shut up upon his snide remark about a certain one of Krystal's body parts, but, other than that, no one really spoke to her. She just went back and forth between the bottles and the glasses, carefully watching a clock on the opposite wall all the while. But, just as Krystal was contemplating the winds of time, they blew something through the bar's door that Krystal had not expected in the least.

When he sat down in seat two, Krystal's mind froze. She watched from the other end of the bar as he yawned and looked with tired eyes at the colorful bottles behind the bar. Krystal diverted her gaze, thinking to herself what she should do next. Run? If so, to him or from him? But it occurred to her that he was expecting her to take his order, so she gathered up faith in her disguise and walked over to him.

"You have an order?" she asked, hoping her heartbeat wasn't as noticeable to him as it was to herself.

"I think…" he looked up at her, and, just when Krystal thought he'd seen through her, "I'll take anything."

Krystal turned away to hide her sigh of relief. As she poured vodka with her back to him, she tried to calm herself down. She wondered why she was pleased he hadn't recognized her. Wasn't this the day she'd dreamt uneasily of for five years? But, as much as she wanted to pour out her heart for him just as she poured out the liquor, she found herself immensely comforted by the fact that he had no idea of her identity.

Turning back, she saw him looking at the table with a heavy head. She placed the glass in front of him, and took in his image with greedy curiosity. His hair was matted, his ears drooped, and his eyelids were drowning in exhaustion. He sipped his drink absent-mindedly, looking this way and that, as if a seraph brandishing a flaming sword would at any moment burst through the door to free him from his own personal hell.

Krystal walked away for a moment to distract herself with other patrons, but found herself pulled back to seat two. As she refilled his glass slowly, she asked him without looking up, "What brings you here tonight?"

He looked at her strangely, as if she had done something quite unorthodox. "I was… thirsty. Why do you ask?"

"Sir, I hate to point it out, but any one of my other customers could kill you with their bare hands. On top of that, most of them are armed," Krystal said, looking him in the eye.

He looked at her with furrowed brows, but didn't say anything.

"What I mean to say is," she leaned a little closer to him, "you're not the usual type that we get in here. At least at this hour."

"Well… I don't think you'll mind my saying the same to you," he said.

"No no, don't change the subject. My interest is piqued now. Who are you?" she asked quietly.

The man chuckled, but answered, "Fox McCloud, milady. At your service," with a polite little bow of the head. Krystal laughed, her mind wanting to cry, and put on that she disbelieved his words.

"Well, Mr. 'McCloud,'" she said, straightening up, "Enjoy your drink."

And he did just that over the next few minutes. But as a man in a dark trench coat stepped through the door and sat in seat ten, Krystal scribbled something onto a napkin and folded it neatly. She eyed this shadowy figure closely, clutching the note in one hand. Laying the napkin down next to Fox's drink without taking her eyes off seat ten, she began to walk toward the other end of the bar.

She stopped in front of this man, looking down at him with an ill-masked malice, and said plainly, "Can I take your order?"

A low voice replied, "Yes, I'll have a…" but he trailed off as Krystal let her hair of the ponytail. It fell down around her face, and the man watched stupidly while she took off her sunglasses. She reached into her jacket and said to the man, "My name is Kursed, and I've been hired to kill you."

Right then, everything in the bar came to a halt. A gun, held by Krystal's frozen hand, stood pointed at this man's nose, other drinkers waited with glasses halfway to their lips, and cards hovered over tables after being thrown down. Nothing stirred the chill, stock-still atmosphere. If anything moved, it was either Fox's face, which was lifting into an open-mouthed realization, or Krystal's eyes, which darted towards Fox for an instant. Then, as she redirected her immensely powerful glare back at her target, she pulled her trigger.

Time burst forward, making up for what it had lost. Motion surged all around the bar, stirring up a post-catastrophic chaos within the walls. People stood up, fell over, and sent chairs flying while Krystal, clutching her weapon, broke for the doors. Stumbling as she went, she wrenched them open, running out into the stormy streets of Kew City.

As she tore through the darkest alleys she could find, water was sent flying with each of her hurried, percussive steps, almost as if they remembered the chaos of the now distant tavern. Rain fell in large, angry handfuls of wetness, and they mingled with Krystal's tears as they unremittingly assaulted her lonely form.


	2. Chapter 2

Krystal, standing alone in the hotel room that she called home, looked at herself in the mirror. She saw not Krystal, but only the identity she'd made for herself. Were these daunting clothes and arrogant sunglasses what her true character consisted of? Krystal frowned at her reflection, wishing the sight of it didn't sicken her so.

But she was faced with a two-sided choice, and she knew she must embrace one of the two. Krystal was the innocent girl who stole Fox's heart nearly a decade ago. Kursed was the famed bounty hunter with whom material wealth had become quite smitten. If the difference was so stark, why could she not decide!?

Anger filled the reflection's face, as did that of its physical counterpart.

"Who are you?" rang through the hotel room.

Krystal and Kursed stared at each other for nearly a minute, but by then, Krystal had made up her mind. She _was_ the one with depth, with form, with substantial evidence for her very being, and Kursed was the one behind the mirror. With every worthless bank note that came into Kursed's hands, more of her own soul left. Krystal, on the other hand, for so many years now, had been forced behind the glass.

But Fox, whom neither Kursed nor Krystal had forgotten, still lived, and even now waited to see if his love and its addressee had remained intact, despite the winds of time beating it to within an inch of its life.

But could Kursed really replace Fox with money? It hadn't happened yet, and it wouldn't likely happen in another five—another fifty—another five-hundred years. It was now Krystal's turn to try to stopper this Fox-shaped hole in her heart, through which so many tears had leaked for so long.

Krystal resolved to fulfill the promise she'd made on the napkin. Walking for the door, she turned to glance once more at the mirror. Her reflection nodded gently, giving Krystal her blessing to do what Kursed could not.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been nearly a day since the shooting in the bar. Krystal, having collected her bounty early the next morning, had slept through nearly the whole day. When she finally emerged from her hotel room, evening had begun to wrap itself around the land with its long, shadowy, strangely comforting fingers. They wrapped themselves around Krystal with an encouraging, almost maternal warmth, which reminded Krystal of how she had become so well acquainted with the shadows in the first place.

She wore her favorite jumpsuit, which not only fitted her more comfortably than any of her other outfits, but also complemented the exotic shade of her fur with its mild, indigo fabric. Unfortunately, she didn't get many opportunities to wear it, mostly because she was disguised the majority of the times she walked out her door. But, for some reason, she felt the need to dress up instead of down for this particular occasion.

When Krystal had walked out of the menacing forest of skyscrapers and into the wider, more open industrial quarter, she could feel the evening's presence even more intimately. Resting on the now visible horizon, a large, rippling, blue sun cast a murky cyan light on the western skies. Krystal's homeworld, Cerinia, had had a beautiful, golden-red sunrise, and the dark, green skies of Kew had taken some getting used to. But, with time, she had become callous to it. Krystal wondered if the promise on the napkin would, with ecstasy and agony, peel such calluses away, or only add to their strength.

The thought was cut short when she reached her destination. The scrapyard that she had specified on the napkin spread out before her feet, a strange beauty in the trash scattered about. Twisted spires of metal stuck up at odd angles, and decrepit skeletons of land, sea, and space vehicles lay as rusted reminders of what once was. And, in the middle of it all, was the towering form she knew quite—the remains of the Great Fox, after so many exploits across the known universe, had ended up in a junkyard on the planet Kew. Krystal had known this for some time now, but Fox, whose backlit silhouette sat on a flat piece of metal, legs crossed, gazing serenely up at his old flagship.

Krystal began to move towards him, working hard to make headway in the veritable sea of discarded material. Each piece of torn metal had attained a new existence here, enlightened by the cool evening glow of the dying star on the horizon. If Krystal hadn't sworn to herself years ago not to use her telepathic abilities anymore, she was sure that the scraps she pushed aside would have mumbled lazily, "Oh, please don't move me… I have having a wonderful dream…"

Fox heard her shortly before she reached. His ears turned a bit to better pick up the quiet sounds of Krystal stepping around bits of junk, but he didn't turn to face her. When Krystal came to a soft stop next to him, she looked out at the ship too, arms folded. Looking down at Fox, she saw that he was grinning now, though he still hadn't moved.

He said quietly, "The sight of that ship still inspires me..." His face reflected the nostalgia in his voice as he continued, "Who would've known she'd end up here on Kew after we parted so long ago?" He paused, either to let it sink into Krystal's mind, or his own. "Of course, I realized my mistake soon after I saw her get towed out of sight. I just wish I could tell her I'm sorry I sold her off when I thought I wouldn't need her anymore."

Krystal had been looking down at Fox with concern all the while, but only when he was finished did he finally turn to Krystal, a hopeful, apologetic look on his face.

She answered pensively, but not without a tinge of self-justification. "Since you've asked it so poetically, I accept your apology." She broke eye contact to look back to the forlorn ruins of the Great Fox. The sun's setting glare shone through the ship's frame in places, adding to the ethereal aura about it. "I asked you to come here so I could show you this. I thought it would be important to you."

"I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather to be right now," Fox said. "Krystal?"

"Yes, Fox," Krystal said. She was surprised to find her old accent returning as she said Fox's name.

"I can understand if you don't want anything to do with me anymore, but I have never forgotten you, or our time together."

Krystal felt the same way. As much as she wanted to pull Kursed out of the mirror and deny Fox, she couldn't help but blurt, "I'd love to."

Fox muttered, "What—what do you…"

Krystal, chuckling with embarrassment, "No, no… not—I didn't mean…" But she managed to say, "I'd love to try it all again."

Fox smiled up at Krystal, and she knelt down and wrapped her arms around his neck. She felt his love emanating from him, like a pride from a beaming child. When Fox had recovered from the shock of being in his lover's arms once more, he moved to hold Krystal too, returning the favor. Krystal felt like time had stopped since they'd first made this contact, but it eventually picked up again, as it always does. When she opened her eyes, she saw something that completely shattered her elation—the tell-tale glint of energy weapons charging.

She froze, whispering in Fox's ear without breaking the embrace, "Don't move."

Fox whispered back quizzically, "What?"

"Someone's aiming a weapon at us. I expect they'll fire once we let go of each other," she said with urgency.

"What kind of energy weapon are we talking about here?"

"Looks like…" she squinted over Fox's shoulder, "Thorion-class."

Fox thought for a moment and replied, "Those fire particle beams, right?"

"Naturally."

"Then down we go," he said, and, without warning, he dropped to the ground with force behind a large sheet of some ship's hull, throwing Krystal down by his side. The moment they did, they heard the garbled whish of a weapon loosing charged energy.

Krystal had started to protest on account of a bruised shoulder, but she said, "Oh- particle beams don't penetrate—"

Fox finished the sentence for her, over the rush of shots flying overhead, "the beryllium-titanium alloy that's used in starship construction." A few shots slammed against the opposite side of their shield, making it glow orange.

"I love you." Krystal said with vigor, kissing Fox quickly.

"Glad to hear it." But as the sound of weapons' fire continued, and crunching footsteps could be heard approaching, Fox asked nobody in particular, "Now how do we get out of here?"

Krystal began rummaging around in her jumpsuit pockets, cursing to herself that she hadn't brought a gun of some sort. As Fox watched intently, she pulled a small cube from a pocket. Pressing a few of the buttons on the sides, she tossed it over the sheltering metal.

The footsteps stopped—they had seen what Krystal had thrown.

"What was that?" Fox inquired.

"Just wait."

A soft clicking and clanking was how it began, but the sound soon escalated, and larger and larger chunks of scrap metal began to roll and even jump to where the cube landed. Someone shouted some late advice involving vacation of the premises, but massive slabs of sharp metal were already getting dragged in from all directions, slamming together with the percussive scratching of metal being warped.

When a flying shard cut Fox's cheek, Krystal yelled over the din, "Other side!"

Another minute or two passed while the two of them waited out the bedlam, shielded by their fateful metal protector, which, along with much of the rest of the junk, wasn't affected by this device of Krystal's. When the roaring din died down, marking a welcome end to the chaos, Fox said in amazement, "What was _that?_"

"A wonderfully handy little thing I bought from a Fichinan military deserter. It magnetizes ferrous metals around it. As the lump of metal grows—"

"So does the power of the field." Fox finished, looking in awe at the massive pile of twisted metal. Then, with a glance down at his shirt, "I think I'm missing a few buttons."

"I'll buy you some clothes later," Krystal said, looking around to see if they were still being watched.

"No, I only need—"

"You're surely not going to continue to wear that," Krystal said, pointing to Fox's worn, faded, buttonless shirt. Before he could vocalize another rebuttal, Krystal put a finger over his mouth. "You know, I'm not above killing you and taking your wallet," she said, smirking.

Fox changed the subject, feeling very satisfied inside despite losing his chivalrous argument. "So, is it fairly commonplace to get shot at around here?"

"Not like this, it isn't," Krystal replied with a business-like air. As she spoke, she activated a small handlight now that the sun had set completely. The question of who had firing at them burned in her mind, but stranger things had happened since she had become Kursed. She thought it best not to trouble Fox over it. "Come," she beckoned to Fox, shining the light on his face. He squinted and moved his hand to shield his eyes, and asked Krystal as he followed her, "So how've you been?"

"Oh, I've managed, as you've noticed, I'm sure," Krystal replied, looking to see which general direction would take them back to her hotel. Using her light to pick out a path through the junk, called behind her, "What about you?"

"Well, I'm not what I used to be," Fox said, his voice thick with the weight of his last five years. Krystal had no trouble believing him, as he had trouble keeping up with her. She saw the irony in this, and it made her uneasy.

"Tell me," she said, already feeling pity for Fox.

"Well, you disappeared, of course. Everything from there just, sort of, went to hell." He paused to step around a corroded power drive. He almost tripped at point, but he regained his balance and continued, "Falco said he had something to take care of off near Sector Y, but I think he has a fear of growing roots. I don't blame him either. The bird hates to be caged. But I haven't seen or heard from him since then."

Krystal, having stopped to wait Fox numerous times now, walked at his side. She asked, "Is Slippy still around?"

"No..." Fox said, looking at the ground ahead of him, "After I failed to stop the Anglars, he told me to start living in the present, and that he and Amanda were going to settle down on Aquas at an address I would never know. When it was all through, he did just that." Before Krystal could ask, Fox added, "But Peppy was still there. He, just like Pepper had before him, stepped down as general for health reasons. He died a few years ago, but he helped me a lot up until then." Fox's words again held a grim weight.

"I'm sorry," Krystal said sincerely. She reminded herself that she had completely expected a story like this from Fox, but what ate away at her was the sickening responsibility she felt for it all. Would any of this have happened if she'd been able to get past the contemptible scorn that had kept her from making contact with Fox long ago?

When Fox picked up his story after a moment, his voice was good deal lighter. "It wasn't Peppy's death that made the impact, it was his last words." Fox laughed a little as he said, in perfect emulation of Peppy's familiar tone, "'Do a barrel roll, Fox!' The doctor's said he was reliving the past out of dementia of the mind. I kid you not, I went home, told ROB to make a life for himself in the city, sold the Great Fox to scrapper, and applied for a job as a freight carrier."

Krystal looked at him with a laughing smile, "So you've been flying freighters ever since?"

"Proudly!" Fox said, as if he were boasting about saving the galaxy from evil.

To Fox's pleasure, this made Krystal laugh. As they walked back into the city from the industrial quarter, Krystal put an arm around Fox. The towers on either side of them, no longer feeling threatening or ominous, almost seemed to welcome them back.

Fox said, as Krystal unlocked the door to her building, "So what _have_ you been up to for all this time?"

Krystal looked up at him and said, "That's for me to know—"

"And me to find out," Fox finished, smiling as if he had expected this.

Krystal entered the key code on her door's lock, but stopped when the door wouldn't open.

After she'd tried it again, Fox asked her, "You're sure this is your room?"

"Of course," she said, pulling hair out of her face, reminded of the benefits of ponytails.

"Well, I'm the front desk can… What are you doing?"

Krystal had pulled off the lock's casing, and was now poking around in its insides. "I'm breaking into my own room."

Fox glanced at either end of the hall to be sure no one was watching while he said, "You are full of surprises, young woman."

"Is that why you love me?" Krystal asked without looking up from the panel she was crouched in front of.

"That's part of it."

When the lock made a clicking noise, the door slid open a crack, and Krystal pushed it open victoriously. Fox turned a light switch as Krystal walked into the room. The mirror hung on the wall next to the database access computer, the bed was made up nice and tight, and the curtains were thrown wide. Everything was just as it should have been, and this made Krystal angry as she surveyed it. She had always kept the mirror on the opposite side of the bed, which she rarely made, and she always, without exception, kept her curtains shut tight.

She noticed on her bed a yellow piece of paper, with a pink carbon copy stapled to the back. Reading it, she saw that it was, "An eviction notice…"

"Krystal, I suspect something very dangerous behind this night's events…"

"As do I," she agreed, reading over the paper. "They're keeping my personal things behind the desk for me to pick up."

"Then let's collect them and get out of this place, then. I don't feel safe here."

"Which is exactly why we're _not_ collecting them."

"You think the administration has turned suddenly against you?" Fox asked, more worried than before.

"It's possible enough. You locked the door when you closed it, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Good. I nearly ruined the lock breaking in, so they shouldn't be able to do the same," Krystal said, moving towards the space heater in the corner of the room.

Fox, looking through the bubble lens embedded in the door, called to Krystal, "There are two men outside… one's trying to get through the lock, I think… they've got guns, too," he said, proud of his Krystal for being so popular. By now, she had extricated her hidden gun from the bowels of the heater, and she was busy strapping the holster to her waist.

Looking up at Fox, she declared with satisfaction, "Well, on our first night as a happy couple in seven or eight years, we're officially on the run."


	4. Chapter 4

Krystal turned her gun over in her hands. She hadn't had to fire it yet, but she feared she would before she and Fox would find safety. They had climbed through the hotel room window and out into the streets, once more finding themselves traversing Kew City's treacherous darkness. But as perilous as the darkness was, one would, ironically, be more threatened when illuminated by streetlights. So, keeping to the poorly-lit alleys and shadowed crevices, Fox had brought them to the room he had rented for his three-night stay on Kew, after which he would be expected to pilot his freighter back to the Lylat system. They arrived without a hitch, shut and locked the door behind them, and propped a desk up against it in case their assailants were to find them out.

The bed stretched out under Krystal, and she set her weapon down and leaned back. She looked down to see Fox curled up in extra blankets on the floor—he had told Krystal to take the bed, and she did so without argument to avoid damaging Fox's precious machismo, something that certainly hadn't changed in five years' time. Krystal picked up her pistol again, as if it could imbue her with the power to keep her lover from harm.

As overjoyed as she was at discovering him again, Krystal felt that she was now the one with responsibility for the both of them. Fox had always seen it oppositely, and now Krystal finally understood his past wishes to guard her life before his own, however irrational they had seemed at the time. The thought of separation for the sake of well-being crossed her mind, but she suppressed it, knowing that Fox had learned a painful lesson when he had succumbed to such thoughts years ago.

So, rejecting the notion of leaving Fox, Krystal held the gun close, knowing its capacity for killing would be the means by which she would preserve their lives together. As to why the two of them were being targeted, Krystal had not the foggiest vision, nor did she even feel the urge to find out.

She stuffed the gun under her mattress, where it could be easily accessible to her right hand at a moment's notice, and she finally rested her head on a pillow, feeling a peace that hadn't entered her mind since she had last left Fox.


	5. Chapter 5

Fox, having changed into a shirt that still had buttons, piloted a generic rental vehicle down a narrow road at an unsafe speed. He was heading back to his hotel room, where Krystal waited behind the barred door for his return. He smiled to himself at the thought of her. Despite having changed so much since he last saw her, she was still the Krystal in whom he had invested so much.

The passenger seat at Fox's left was empty, save for a few cosmetic products he had bought during his errands. After he'd withdrawn money from Krystal's account (which he'd discovered was enormous), he'd rented this rather nice vehicle. It was a sleek little sliver of a car, purring quietly as it fiercely cut through the air a few inches above the road. After he'd taken it for an obligatory joy ride, he'd driven to the freighter agency to tell them they'd have to find a replacement to fly his tanker back to Lylat. Feeling freer than he had in years, he had swung the car through to the other side of town to pick up the hair dyes he had originally left for.

But as exciting as it was to be unemployed and traveling at break-neck speeds at the same time, what occupied his mind most was Krystal. It had only recently been apparent to Fox's conscious mind that he had been reunited with the girl of his dreams for nearly twelve hours. Now that this was finally his reality after an eternity of wishing it was so, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do next. He felt like a man who'd just won the lottery, not knowing what to do with his newfound wealth. Somehow, although uncertain about the future, Fox wasn't worried one bit, as long as the faceless attackers they ran from didn't hurt Krystal. This was paramount.

But Fox tried to lighten up about it, knowing that this thought had been the root of so much pain in his past. As the hotel building appeared up ahead, his mind wondered what course of action he'd take were the building in flames or surrounded by armed men. When he caught himself doing this, he pushed such disturbing scenarios from his mind's eye.

He parked on the street, and shut the door behind him once he'd retrieved the bag of dyes. He opened the door, walked across the shabby little lobby, climbed the stairs up to his floor, and walked to his room. All of this he did with a completely empty mind. Having nothing pressing to think about, he gave his rusty gears a vacation as his legs did their job.

He knew it would be short lived, though. As he opened the door and saw Krystal pulling the desk away from the door, his mind raced again.

"It's good to see you alive," she said with the strain of pulling a massive desk across carpet. Fox felt embarrassed by the fact that he knew he would be having a much harder time than she was, were he in her position. She wasn't so helpless anymore after all. Or had she ever even been helpless?

Krystal broke his train of thought with a surprised, "Oh!"

"What?" Fox asked, just as surprised as she was.

"You're wearing a red bandana! I haven't seen you in one of those since I joined the Star Fox team!"

"Oh, yeah," Fox said, having forgotten that he'd put one on. He'd found it in a back pocket, and he supposed he'd stuffed it there when he was packing—he'd certainly never used it as a handkerchief. So, after discovering it, he'd absent-mindedly tied it around his neck. "I guess it just felt natural to put it on, us being together again."

"I think it looks good on you," she replied, straightening it out with one hand. Fox noticed that the other held a gun.

"What's that for?" he said, pointing to it.

"Oh, in case you were followed."

It occurred to Fox that he, despite all his worries, hadn't once thought to see if he was being trailed, or even watched for that matter. He made a mental note to be more careful in the future. Either that, or rely more heavily on Krystal's savvy.

"Anyway," he began, "I brought you a number of colors; you can take your pick."

Krystal took the bag from his hands and looked inside. Pulling out a small bottle, she said, "I think I'll just bleach it."

Fox said wistfully, "I'll miss you in blue. I always thought it suited you better than any other color would."

Without regret, Krystal replied, "Well, it'll suit me a lot better if it means we won't be recognized and shot at. Violet foxes aren't exactly common, you know."

"I suppose…" Fox said, knowing it was for the best.

He walked over and laid on the bed while Krystal stepped into the bathroom to wash away all that lovely blue. When he heard the shower turn on, he realized she hadn't locked the door. He didn't know why, but this made Fox happy as he shut his eyes and lazily drifted off to the land of dreams, where Krystal always wore tight clothes and he was always protecting her from those with evil intentions, guns a-blazing.


	6. Chapter 6

Fox woke slowly to see someone walk up to the foot of his bed.

"Well, how do I look?" she asked hopefully. Fox, still sleepy, had forgotten momentarily about the bleach, and didn't even recognize the Krystal that stood before him. She had a tan coat of fur covering her whole body, and any trace of the cerulean he'd come to cherish so dearly was gone. Fox tried to see beauty in the glowing hues of Krystal's damp hair, and he certainly didn't have to try very hard. He knew had come to terms with it in time, and this fact was made easier to swallow by the knowledge that it would all be brilliant sapphire again once they were safe and sound.

"Wonderful," Fox said with finality, sliding off the edge of the bed.

Krystal, beaming, pulling her baggy coat on over her t-shirt, said, "Then we'd better get going. We've got places to go, things to buy, and bad guys to run from." She cocked her weapon with a practiced dexterity, and slid it into the folds of her jacket. "You still have money. Don't you?"

"Me personally? No. I was bankrupt long ago. Now, if we count you in our figures, we have plenty," Fox replied, moving to help Krystal move the desk away from the door.

"Oh, I don't expect you to contribute anything aside from the occasional foot massage."

"Gladly," Fox said, looking over at Krystal.

A little surprised by his response, Krystal said with laugh, "I'll bear that in mind."

As the two of them climbed down the stairs into the lobby, Fox decided that he liked Krystal's new paint job just as much as the old one. He'd also noticed that her accent had completely returned.

As they approached the car, Krystal examined the car with pride, saying, "Good choice, Fox." She ran a finger down a groove along the side of the vehicle, absorbing as much of its lustrous splendor as she could. "Tell you what. We'll run out and buy you gun of your own if I can drive."

Fox shrugged, glad at the thought of not being so helpless anymore, and reminded her, "You paid for it."

Without delay, Krystal slid her agile body into the car in one smooth motion, ignited the power cell, and took off the moment Fox shut his door. Fox, startled by this unexpected jolt, turned to see Krystal grinning roguishly as she held the accelerator as far forward as she dared. Fox swallowed hard and looked back at the road ahead. And he thought his speeds were unsafe.

In just a few moments' time, they were parked outside a dilapidated little pawnshop. Krystal stepped out, panting heavily for all the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Fox stepped out on the other side, panting heavily for all the terror that had stricken his feeble heart. When they turned to face each other over the top of the vehicle, they both laughed weakly.

Fox asked, "Who taught you to drive, young lady?"

Krystal, as out of breath as Fox was, replied, "I've never driven before. I always walked," and she started off toward the shop. Fox worked to catch up from behind, floored again by Krystal's astounding ability to surprise him.

As they walked through the door of the pawnshop, Fox half expected a little bell to tingle as it opened and shut. He was sure he hadn't heard one, but the owner walked in from the back room as if a bell had indeed rung. He was an old terrier with a gnarled face, and he wore a greasy apron down his front.

"Ahh, Kursed. I see you've returned to me once again. I love the fur, by the way," he croaked, wiping his hands on a rag.

"Let's hope you're the only one who can see past the bleach," Krystal replied.

"So, what will it be today? Any particular poison on your mind? An exotic knife, perchance? I've just received a—"

"No, no, nothing fancy this time, just a weapon for my friend, here." Krystal motioned at Fox, who gave a feeble wave as she did. He was immediately sorry he had.

Facing Fox, the man said, "You ought to be careful at whom you wave in this town, good sir. Wave at the wrong person, and you might just get yourself—"

Krystal interrupted him again, saying sternly, "Drop it. Just show me a gun, if you please."

He back away in the rear of the shop, muttering, "Certainly, certainly…"

Krystal turned to Fox, who felt quite out of place, and whispered reassuringly, "Don't worry. strange as this foolish old man is, I trust him."

Fox said under his breath, "I certainly don't."

Krystal didn't get to respond, for the man walked back to the counter steering a cart laden with weapons of all calibers.

"We stock a wide assortment of firearms, including those illegal by national and planetary standards." He hoisted up a massive, black tube up onto the table. It had wires and coils protruding at odd angles, all connecting the tube to a thick, heavy looking backpack, which the old man slid over his shoulders. He picked up the barrel with both hands and flicked a switch, at which point a high-pitched whine began and quickly rose in frequency. Krystal jammed hers fingers into her ears, and Fox did likewise, as the scrawny little pawn man unleashed a blazing red bolt of brilliant light at a large, flat, dish on the other side of the room, which absorbed the shot as it made contact.

Both Fox and Krystal were smiling like children in a sweet shop as the man set the weapon down and said to himself, "I love my job," before continuing with his sales pitch. Still wearing the power supply on his back, he held out a slender, black particle-pistol.

"As lovely as Sasha may be, I believe this better fits what you're looking for."

Fox took the gun and held it in his firing hand. It felt light, but still hearty, with such a perfect balance to it that his arm trembled with the wonderfully natural feel of the handle in his fingers. He looked at Krystal, who was smiling with arms crossed, then at the old man behind the counter, who motioned towards the disk he'd shot at earlier. He said serenely, "Take a shot."

After hesitating a moment, he did. And, oh, how lovely it felt to see the golden flash fly from the end of his gun to land directly in the center of the target.

"I'll take it," he said, still holding the gun towards the dish. The old man smiled satisfactorily as Krystal paid him. Fox added, "Rather, she'll take it, and give it to me later."


	7. Chapter 7

As Krystal paid the man, she studied Fox's face as he admired the gun. She wanted to say something wise about a warrior's spirit, but she kept quiet to give Fox his well deserved moment alone with his pistol. This would be his first real gun, after all. Of all the countless others he'd fired, he'd never actually had the experience of knowing one personally. It was more of a professional relationship between man and gun, as opposed to an affair of love.

But this luxury wouldn't come cheaply. Krystal had known this from the moment she'd decided to introduce Fox to the wonderful world of firing arms, just as Kursed had decided to introduce Krystal. Krystal counted out bills on the as the old man looked greedily down at them. As soon as she laid down the last bill, he snatched up the money like a glutton snatches up a side dish.

Krystal motioned to him and whispered, "Say, you wouldn't happen to know of any way for the two of us to get off-planet discreetly, would you?"

He leaned over the counter and rasped, "Any particular destination?"

"Lylat."

The old dog thought for a moment, looking down at Krystal's hands. "Actually, I have a man who brings me deliveries every few weeks. I think he comes in from Lylat, but I'm not sure. Either way, he's trustworthy enough to take you and your friend away quietly."

Krystal replied, "When does he come into Kew next?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"Perfect. Send him a message that he'll have us as cargo to wherever he's headed. You know what he'll charge?"

"No idea; you'll have to ask him personally. Bring a lot." As Krystal started to turn away, he tugged her sleeve. "Care to share what could possibly scare Kursed off this planet?"

Krystal looked sideways at Fox, knowing exactly what she was afraid of. But she answered sharply, "No."

Fox must've heard her say it, because he came forward to ask, "How do we know this man won't sell out once we're aboard?" Krystal went red (which clearly showed now that her fur was no longer so dark) as she felt the shame of her underestimation of Fox—specifically his hearing ability.

The old man looked offended, as if the fact that he trusted the man was to be taken at face value. "He's one of my best suppliers! Half the money that ends up in my account is there thanks to him. Just a few months ago he brought me Sasha," he said, indicating the gargantuan weapon he'd fired earlier. "Take it from me, after Kursed here has bought so much of my merchandise over the past few years, I would never put you on a ship piloted by anyone whose alignment I was unsure of in the least!"

Fox seemed convinced. Krystal said, "As long as we get off unharmed."

The man shrugged and backed away. "I'm just doing my job." Pointing at Krystal, he said, "Now go do yours."

"Yes, sir," she answered with pride, and started towards the door.

Fox turned around just before they left and asked the man, "Were you ever in the Fichinan army?"

He smiled and answered, "In my younger days. But I deserted just before the Venomian war."

Krystal looked at Fox, seeing more in him than she ever had. He returned the smile and said, "Shall we go?"

"You first. Something tells me you'll want to drive this time."

And so Fox led the way out from the pawnshop, gladly taking the wheel with Krystal safely out of reach of any steering wheels.

"Where to now, my love?"

"Oh, hush," she said reproachfully, although she grinned at being addressed as such." We're going uptown to buy you some new clothes."

"What's wrong with what I've got on?"

"Aside from the red bandana, which we're keeping, by the way, your clothes are atrocious. You've clearly been living away from any females for the past half a decade."

Fox turned to face the dashboard, looking lightheartedly defeated. He admitted, "Can't argue there."

Krystal said, "Then what are you waiting for? Throw it into gear and I'll give you directions."

Fox leaped into action, flipping switches, firing up drive systems, and gripping the wheel. "Aye aye, captain."


	8. Chapter 8

Krystal sighed softly as Fox drove in a pleasant silence, broken only by Krystal's directions. So much had happened in the past day and a half. Fate had unceremoniously thrown Fox at her, and she had embraced him, not knowing what else to do. From that moment on, Krystal had found herself looking into a gun barrel pointed at her by the same fate. Now that the elation she had felt by rediscovering Fox was beginning to wear thin, they would be tested, and not without its own fair share of tribulation.

She held her gun close beneath her jacket, accepting the fact that its flawless operation would be relied on heavily to preserve her and Fox's lives. These anonymous aggressors that came in from all directions had been thrown off their trail for the past half a day, but now that they openly risked public exposure, despite measures taken against it, recognition and weapons-fire would be soon to come. She cursed herself for her hopeless love for Fox, and all the reckless actions she made while under its influence.

Through the rear-view mirror she could see her reflection. The bleached face of Kursed looked at her through the glass. It reminded Krystal that she had been given a chance to win back Fox, and now she had succeeded. But now that it had happened, Kursed's instincts against such frivolity as clothes shopping clashed with Krystal's innocent yearning for such simple pleasures. Kursed warned Krystal against a weakened guard, and both of the two understood full well the consequences of allowing harm to befall Fox.

Krystal turned her gaze upon Fox, who was smiling mildly as he watched the road ahead. Did he have the same fears? Surely not. He represented the old days to Krystal—sunny evenings filled with contented conversation of the mundane. A beautiful time, without doubt. But Kursed was quick to remind Krystal that Kew's sun was dying. It would provide no such luxury as a warm evening, and complacency would not be tolerated.

All these thoughts fell upon Krystal at once like a surprise rainstorm loosing gallons of unfeeling water upon her euphorically clouded mind. Doubt edged these notions, but Krystal knew that whatever happened to her and Fox, it would all happen to them as a couple, as opposed to two parted individuals. Even so, one could not rely on love for everything. Precautions must be taken, lest death bear down violently upon them as fate watched smugly from a distance.

"You know, Fox…"

"Hm?" he said, turning his head momentarily before returning his attention to the road ahead. Krystal thought he was wise to do so.

"I don't think we should go shopping, after all. Perhaps another time…" Krystal said slowly.

"Well, I suppose it's up to you in the end. This is your turf, after all." When Krystal didn't respond, he said, "We'll do what you think is best." Still Krystal didn't reply. She squinted ahead at a parking lot in the distance.

"Fox! Turn off here!" she yelled without warning.

Fox jerked the wheel on reflex, leaving the car keeling on two wheels before slamming back to earth again as they completed the turn.

"What was that all about!?" Fox demanded after he'd regained control.

Krystal had turned in her seat, looking through the rear window. She saw behind them, making the turn Fox had only just made, the three black cars she had seen waiting for them at the entrance to the parking lot. So the assailant had found them. The time for precautions was long gone, and Krystal dearly wished that she were the one behind the wheel.

"Gun it, Fox, they've found us!" she cried, retrieving her own projectile-pistol from its hiding place. The car made a roaring noise, and Krystal felt it lurch ahead—Fox had complied. Apparently, so had their followers, for the distance between them was closing gradually as Fox poured more and more inertia into the car. Krystal cocked her gun and aimed at the nearest car through the rear window. She would get one free shot through it, then they would know what she was up to. Holding the gun up to her face as steadily as she could while riding in a missile-like object at full speed, she aligned her sights on the driver's head.

And she hit it precisely, leaving clean bullet holes through the rear window of her own car, and the windshield of the car behind them. The vehicle slowed dramatically as the back of the poor man's head exploded onto the upholstery. The identical car behind it swerved to avoid it as it slid gracefully back to tear itself apart as it made contact with an unforgiving wall.

At the same moment, one man in each car began firing plasmatic shots of frightening magnitude at the rear of their car, which didn't take kindly to being fired upon. After a few moments, the outer casing began to buckle under the percussive beating.

Over the roar of the engine, Krystal shouted, "See if you can make a sudden turn!"

Fox, an expression of shock wrapped in extreme concentration on his face, replied without looking up, "I don't think you understand just how fast we're going!"

"At least try!" Krystal snapped as the air in the car grew very hot. The body was melting.

"No! I'm not risking it!"

"God damn it, Fox! Do it or we both die anyway!"

"You do something about them! My hands are tied!" he screamed back desperately.

Krystal accepted his kind request by seizing the wheel and jerking it to the right as an intersection approached. The car pitched unsettlingly at this sudden action, swinging aggressively to the right nonetheless. For a moment, Krystal thought that they'd make it through unscathed. Alas, a gut-wrenching crunch shook the unfortunate vehicle as a parked car was sent rolling away by the impact, leaving both the stationary and the hurtling masses with caved-in faces. Were it not for inertial counter-measures installed in such a luxurious car, Fox and Krystal would be in the same state as the two defunct vehicles.

Fox stared wide-eyed ahead, as if he were still driving. His mouth hung open stupidly, and this was what drove Krystal over the edge. Or, should we say, drove Kursed over the edge.

"Why the hell wouldn't you turn!?" she cried out at him with a threatening force. Tears were clouding Krystal's vision, but Kursed carried on. "You would've let us both be incinerated in a mass of molten metal! You—rotten—" she began to splutter, punching him savagely in the shoulder as she tried to form words. She couldn't any longer.

When it was finally over, she drew in a deep breath, forced Kursed back into the cracked mirror, and put her head down on the crumpled dashboard, covering it with her hands as the tears came. She let it out, knowing she had to get over this quickly lest the two remaining cars were to turn and continue the search, which they surely would. She felt a sturdy hand on her back. She looked up at him, only to see that he still hadn't looked away from the shattered windshield. She hugged him, blinking hard to stop herself from wasting so much time.

Pulling away, she said softly, "Come. We need to make ourselves scarce."

Fox nodded, and they got out of the car in silence. Midday was beginning to hold itself over the murky skies as Fox and Krystal ran for their lives into the shadows between buildings.


	9. Chapter 9

Fox, still absorbing everything that had happened while he was driving, ran alongside Krystal as the two of them fled. In reality, he wasn't alongside Krystal—he was behind her, and considerably so. While this meant that Fox had to work ever harder to keep the pace, it also meant that he got a good view of Krystal from behind. A lovely sight, of course, but Fox saw it as an irrepressible thought complex that was, nonetheless, out of place considering their recent catastrophe. As odd as it seemed, he gave in, letting his greedy eyes absorb what was before him.

Krystal was becoming quite dirty quite fast. If they made it off-world before getting killed, she would be quite upset over this, given that they had the uninterrupted conversation that Fox had been looking forward to for days. Since they had run into each other, which seemed such a distant memory now, any moment that weapons' fire wasn't singing the fur on their heads, they had been either preoccupied, or just too tired to have a proper exchange of thoughts.

Fox muttered a prayer to whatever gods there may have been. He begged for a moments' peace; a quick break in the action through which he could collect his thoughts. When it occurred to him that that was exactly what he was doing, he pondered the fact over the silent pumping of his legs. Had Krystal not stopped to wait for Fox, his mind may have wandered into the amorphous grounds of religious contemplation.

"Need a break?" she asked when Fox caught up. She was hardly out of breath, and Fox was jealous of it.

"Of course not. Unless you do," Fox replied between heavy pants.

Krystal smiled grimly and ran a hand through the white blaze of fur between Fox's ears. "Then I need one." At this, Fox sank to the ground and rested against a cold brick wall. The air was beginning to cool, and Fox feared that the weak little sun was nearing its slow and sickly descent towards the horizon. "Our hotel is bound to be swarming with those… whoever they are," Fox heard Krystal say as she scanned the exits to the alley they were in.

"We'll have to find a new one, I suppose."

"No. I can almost guarantee that we've been blacklisted." Krystal said. "If they were waiting for us on that road, that means they've learned where we came from and what direction we were headed. We'll probably have to stay in hiding until we leave in the morning."

With such an unhealthy prognosis, Fox doubted that his prayer would be answered soon. "Is it possible that that old man turned us in?"

"I'm sure he hasn't. As much as he is motivated by money, he still has his honor. He's never double-crossed me in all ours years of doing business, and that's not because he never had the opportunity."

Fox stood up and said, "Do you think he'd hide us in his shop until morning?"

"My thoughts exactly. He might hide us, unless he thinks it's too much of a risk of compromising his illegal operations."

Fox changed the subject, "Krystal. I think we need to get married."

Krystal turned, looking startled. "What?" she asked plainly.

"I said I think we ought to get ourselves married when we get away from all this."

But where Fox had anticipated Krystal to reply with grace and playful banter, a Kursed look of carnal survival instinct played across her features. "Keep your mind on staying alive. Now is not the time to discuss such future plans. Lest you forget, we're running for our lives." With this, she began running again. Fox, bewildered, lurched forward after her again, his aching muscles finding it a bit more difficult to keep up than before the break. Up ahead, Krystal's sandy ponytail swayed from one side to the other, as if it couldn't decide which side it wanted to rest on. Fox decided he liked it better on the left.


	10. Chapter 10

Krystal felt angrily embarrassed from the way Fox so lightly brought up marriage. She knew his intentions had been good, but she was tired of all the romantic drama. There was no denying that she felt an attraction to the man, but in the long-run, Krystal felt too conflicted to bring the issue any finality. Perhaps it would be best after all to just tell Fox to leave when she'd gotten him safely back to Lylat. Either way, she had to get him off the planet. That was certain.

She felt the harsh pavement beneath her to take its toll on her feet. Her shoes felt too small, and her feet begged for freedom from their bondage. But as quickly as it emerged, Krystal tried to suppress the image of running barefoot, for it had always brought memories of her youth on Cerinia, where most of the inhabitants trod freely across the cool grass without footwear. Krystal could almost feel the dew between her toes as she ran, but reality took hold of her consciousness again when she realized that it was only stale sweat. Realizing that this slip in concentration had caused her to slow her pace slightly, she redirected her energy towards running; throwing one foot forward, landing as lightly as possible, swinging the other though to keep her balance, and landing again. The cycle was dull and repetitive, but it would get her to her destination with speed and efficiency.

When she turned her head to get a bearing on Fox, she found that neither speed nor efficiency was looking kindly upon him. He was a few dozen meters behind her, struggling as if he were wading through a foot of water. Krystal stopped to wait for him again, hoping the frustration she felt was conveyed to Fox.

"I think I need another break," Fox spluttered.

"You'll be able to rest your sorry ass soon enough. The pawnshop is just around the corner. Get out your gun," she said as she took hers in hand. Fox, knees buckling, made a painstaking effort to pull his weapon from its hiding place under his shirt, which was darkened in places by perspiration. Krystal noted it, both with her eyes and her nose. "When was the last time you ran, anyway?"

"On a regular basis? Probably not since you left Star Fox."

Krystal made a grunt in response. He'd shifted the blame back to her. Touché. But rather than perpetuate a fruitless argument, she peered out of the alleyway towards their destination.

Miraculously, it was free of suspicious activity. Their pursuers must've begun tracking them after they'd visited the old man for the first time. Of course, such a lack of opposition could prove to be treachery, but Krystal tried to force herself to assume that this wasn't a trap.

"Come on, Fox. We're going to have to run for the front door."

He nodded slowly, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of a hand. Krystal looked him over, exhaling deeply. Even when she was angry with him, the sight of him gave her hope. As she took off toward the shop, she heard Fox trotting faithfully after her, doing his best to keep pace for the short sprint ahead of them.

They burst through the door, knocking the little bell above it to the floor. The building was just as it had been when they last saw it—except that the old man was pointing Sasha at the door. Krystal screeched to a halt, nearly causing Fox to run into her. She thrust her hands into the air and dropped her weapon, cursing her naïveté in assuming that there was no trap.

"What are you doing? Pick up your guns, both of you! I'm not aiming this at you," the old man said over the grinding hum of his enormous weapon.

Krystal, immensely relieved, snatched up her pistol. "Then who _are_ you aiming it at?"

"The folks following you. I assumed you'd run here, and I just received word that they were already headed this way. They'll be here any minute, so get yourselves hidden in the back room!" he commanded as cars could be heard pulling up outside.

Krystal nodded to him, saying without words, "Thank you for saving our lives." Without further hesitation, she led Fox past the old man back into the junk-filled storeroom. She directed him into a corner, killed the lights, and ducked into a corner herself. In complete silence, the both of them listened to the conversation outside filtered through to them.

"What're you doing here!? Get outta my shop!" came the old man's scratchy voice.

A smooth, unperturbed voice responded coolly, "My men believe you may be harboring two particularly dangerous individuals. If you aren't, I assure you, a thorough search of the building will cement your innocence. Please stand aside."

Krystal could hear Sasha make a menacing, escalating, hum; the old man was charging a shot. "You'll do no such thing," he replied with a slow determination.

Still the soft tenor of the other man's voice didn't seem intimidated in the least when he said, "I'm afraid you'll regret it dearly if you choose not to stand aside."

The old man snarled, "Same to you," and Krystal wished she'd covered her ears as Sasha violently belched forth all the energy she had been holding back.

Amidst the pandemonious screams, the tenor, having finally lost his composure, roared, "I do hope you don't think we won't be able to outmatch your firepower! Mark my words, we'll be back in full force when you least expect it, old man, and you certainly aren't the only one with illegal arms at your disposal!"

But the old man growled coldly, "Get out of my sight," and Sasha accompanied him by charging another shot. Krystal smiled to herself as she heard hastily retreating footsteps.


	11. Chapter 11

Fox and Krystal stood atop the old man's roof as the sallow blue sun crept up above the tops of buildings in the distance. The gusty air whipped around Fox's legs, chilling him even further than he already was. Krystal, who was holding her own weapon at the ready, looked down at the streets, waiting for the inevitable—the men had promised to return with greater firepower, and the old man had confirmed it. Krystal had decided to wait the night out in the pawnshop, praying that their ride off-planet arrived before their pursuers. Unfortunately, both parties were proving to be late.

Fox looked at the sky behind him. No sign of approaching ships. Damn. He shifted his feet nervously in the gravel that covered the building's flat roof. His weapon, charged and ready, was becoming greasy in Fox's sweaty palms. He knew the old man would have Sasha on a hair trigger, just waiting for anyone to try to storm his shop. They had expected visibility to be an issue, but since the encounter had become so untimely, the sun had had time to climb to a considerable position above the skyline.

Minutes ticked by slowly, and Fox became uneasier as each one passed him by. The sound of Sasha growling in the doorway below them and the sight of Krystal perched on the building's edge reassured Fox to a point, but he couldn't shake from his mind the image of the both of them lying dead in the gravel.

"Krystal?" he said through a dry mouth.

"Yes, Fox?" she replied without turning away from her vigil.

Fox didn't really know how to respond. He'd only wanted to hear her voice. "Godspeed," he said quietly.

"To both of us," she added. Fox nodded to himself, squeezing the handle of his gun tightly.

At that moment, four or five cars burst in from around a corner, and men were leaning out of them, weapons blazing. Krystal began to loose a stream of bullets through their windshields, while the old man dashed towards the approaching vehicles, yelling like a madman. Fox watched, too stunned to shoot, as a shot from Sasha turned one of the cars into an awesome fireball, which illuminated the whole block in dazzling red light.

But the bravery was ill founded. A stray shot found the old man's chest, and just as he was about to fire again, he was sent careening over backwards, his whole torso burnt and bloodied. Fox cried out when this happened, and this brought the attention of the attackers to the roof.

Immediately, a rain of fire was sent up at them. Krystal backed away from the edge, still firing again and again, stopping only for a fraction of a second to slam a new clip into her pistol. Fox was lost in the action, completely unaware of what was happening around him. But as a small grenade landed by Krystal's foot, he saw that she hadn't noticed. He felt his gut crunch, seeing Krystal only moments from a fiery demise.

He leapt forward, seizing the grenade in his free hand, and lobbed it forward in a purely instinctual motion. It soared cleanly through one of the shattered windshields, and it would've landed squarely in the side seat if it hadn't detonated an instant beforehand.

Krystal's face, squinting from the brightness of the explosion, looked over at Fox, who stood dumbly astonished at what he had just done. "Brilliant!" she cried before she went back to shooting at the men below.

One of them dragged a long tube from a car, mounted it on his shoulder, and pulled his trigger. A great crash shook Fox as half of the building began to crumble under his feet. The gravel poured down into the hole, and Fox began to tumble with it, completely helpless as gravity worked its magic. Just as Fox became sure he was to be buried in rubble, his shirt was hiked up under his armpits, stopping his fall.

Fox turned to see Krystal holding his collar, and she shouted, "Don't you die just yet! He's here!" Fox noticed a large craft behind her. His heart soared at the sight of it—salvation! As Fox climbed out of the hole, weapons fire glanced off the ship's sturdy hull. It swung around with a great sweeping motion to give them access to an open door on its rear. Buffeted by the anti-gravity drive, Fox and Krystal struggled to escape the din of the fight into the safety of their getaway vehicle. When they'd cleared its threshold, the ramp snapped shut and sealed behind them. Fox was almost knocked over as the ship lurched forward and blasted away from the scene.

Fox and Krystal looked at each other as the glancing blows outside died off. Krystal's chest was heaving, as was Fox's.

"It's over. We made it!" she said slowly.

"The old man—" Fox began.

"Died honorably," Krystal finished. "That's how he would've wanted to go out—in a fight."

Fox turned to look at the steel plates on the floor as he caught his breath. They'd probably be in orbit by now. The question arose in his mind as to why the pilot had risked getting shot down to scoop them up, but as the man's chair swiveled to reveal a blue and gold face, Fox's question was answered.

"Well, lookie here!" Falco Lombardi said with a smirk.


	12. Chapter 12

"So this is what you've been up to for three years? Ferrying junk between systems?"

Krystal heard Fox's voice in her helmet, a little muffled, but clear nonetheless. She peered around the shuttle's starboard g-diffuser to catch a glimpse of the cockpit's windows, and she saw Fox and Falco facing each other within. Falco, feathers all carefully preened and combed into his signature ruff, reclined in the pilot's armchair, grinning with pride at Fox's question.

"What? Did you expect something a little more romantic?"

Krystal rolled her eyes to herself, and saw the reflection of this action in the faceplate of her pressure suit's headpiece. She returned to her work on the upper-port g-diffuser. A neutrino conduit had ruptured in the firefight at the pawnshop, and Krystal had volunteered to patch it up. If Fox needed anything, it was sitting a spell with an old friend.

"Honestly? I thought you'd stoop to piracy."

Krystal reckoned that someone had left the radio link with her helmet on, and thanks to the mistake, she got to sit in on their conversation while soldering the damaged manifolds. Despite Krystal's lack of experience repairing such systems, the work was quite mindless.

"Are you kidding? This _is_ piracy, Foxie. Most of what I bring the old man is illegal in its own right, not to mention the stuff he has me ship back to Lylat."

"So it's lively enough to quench your insatiable thirst for adventure?"

Falco scoffed, "Of course not. Shirking law-enforcement isn't much of a party."

After a pause, Fox said softly, "The Star Fox days are long gone."

"Speaking of foxes, what's paid your bills since the team disbanded?"

"Same thing you're doing, only legally."

"What? Shipping?"

"Yeah, in those big freight trucks you see so many of these days."

"Like, what, S-22s?"

"Mostly. Sometimes they'd drop me in one of the old Kesper models."

Falco sighed. "They don't make birds like they used to. I had to do everything short of murder to get my hands on this thing, and she's only half-decent at that."

"What happened to the Sky Claw? You still have that?"

"I wish. Cornerian police confiscated it, said it was too dangerous."

"You can't really blame them, you know. It was armed to the teeth."

"Never was a problem during the war… I half-wish Venom was still under Andross's reign…"

"Oh, shut up. You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Look, I'm just saying that we've both been dicking around for the past three years, picking at our fingernails while we wonder what to do now that nobody's shooting at us!"

"Settle down. We're adults now, not crazed teenagers flying around like idiots—"

"I'd prefer flying around like an idiot!"

Fox sighed as Falco continued, "That little scuffle on Kew—that was the high point of my career as a junk vendor! And I wasn't even fighting in it!"

"Thanks by the way… you saved my and Krystal's fur down there."

"Trust me, it was my pleasure."

"I'm sure it was."

Krystal pitied Falco. He had become a slave to adrenaline, floundering in a world devoid of thrills. She deactivated her radio receiver, having no wish to hear more.

Having finished the work she'd left the comforts of pressurized atmosphere to finish, she worked her way to the airlock on the craft's starboard side, clutching the hull as she went. The engines' idle gently set the metal plates to vibrating, and as Krystal moved her gloved hand across them, the vibration manifested itself as a soft hum in her eardrums, breaking the sickening silence of vacuum. Heaven knew that this serene note sung by a sub-nuclear reactor deep within the bowels of the shuttle was more welcome to Krystal's ears than the song of the caged bird sitting in the pilot's seat.

When the airlock slammed shut behind her, she gratefully released the clasps on her helmet, and she felt relieved as the stale air in her suit was replaced by the fresh mix filling the cargo hold. Not bothering to take off the rest of her suit, she operated a small panel that sent the bulkhead leading into the cockpit jumping out of her way.

"All fixed, boys," she said cheerfully. "You shouldn't have any more problems, given you don't get yourself in another firefight."

"Which, at this point, is still on the table," Falco said, not looking up from his controls. "We'll be at the Kew FTL gate in a minute or two, folks, and as soon as we're through, you'll be looking Corneria in the eyeballs."

Krystal took a seat behind Fox, who was either pouting like a child, or lost in thought like an old man. She deemed both scenarios equally likely.

Leaning up to him, she said, "Gonna be glad to get back to Corneria?"

"Not really," he replied, swiveling to face her. "It's not like I have a family or a home," he said, flatly.

Krystal was sobered by the remark. "I don't either Fox. My family and home were destroyed when Cerinia fell. Welcome to the club."

Fox bit his lip, and turned back around.

"Fox, could you start communications with the gate staff?" Falco asked, again without looking up—he seemed to be running calculations for the upcoming jump to Lylat.

"Yeah, sure," Fox said, trailing off as he donned a headset. He pressed a few buttons on the communications board and said, "FTL gate K-E-W, this is civilian SS number…" he scanned his panel for a registry number, "2271… 8965… 04… 08… requesting passage to the Lylat system." As he finished, he looked up through the viewport at the now visible FTL gate. It glimmered off in the distance, its spoked, circular form slowly rotating. A small crowd of ships of all shapes and sized were gathered up, waiting for their scheduled departures.

A bored, male voice could be heard muttering in Fox's headset. Fox turned to Falco and said, "Jumping in four minutes, Falco."

"Perfect timing," he said proudly.

Krystal watched the ring slowly grow as they approached it, and felt relieved to be traveling to Corneria. She couldn't quite put a finger on it, but she felt a connection with that planet. Perhaps it had to do with her risking her life to protect it numerous times. Whatever the reason was, she'd been waiting for Fox to rescue her from Kew for three years, and now that he had, it was time for the triumphal return home.


	13. Chapter 13

Fox had been watching quietly as the trio's craft had pulled into the crowd of idling ships waiting in front of the gate to travel to Corneria. Falco had been interfacing with the gate's navigational computer to properly synchronize the jump. Krystal spent the time looking past her crossed legs at the riveted metal floor, pondering something absorbedly. Fox, too, had found himself buried in reflection. The notion of having three of four members of Star Fox gathered in one room waiting to arrive at Corneria both inspired and troubled Fox. While the set up seemed to beckon back to the good days, Fox saw that so much was different. These people, his friends, had changed—one of them so much that he would never have considered letting himself come into such close proximity with Fox, at least not without socking somebody. Fortunately for Fox, Slippy was light-years away on Aquas, safely out of punching range.

Fox leaned back in his seat and stretched out his arms. The silence of the cabin compelled him to move and make sound—anything to break the pregnant silence.

Krystal seemed to read his mind, resting a hand on his shoulder and saying softly, "We'll be home soon."

He turned, his curiosity piqued by the thought of mind-reading. "Am I really that easy to read, or did you probe my mind?"

Her hand slipped off Fox's shoulder, and she said, perplexedly, "What?"

"Telepathy. Did you use it? Come to think of it, you haven't mentioned your powers at all recently," Fox noted quietly.

"I… don't—" she began to stammer, falling over her words as they passed her lips. Eventually, she got out, "I don't use telepathy anymore. Don't worry about it."

Fox turned back around, not wanting to prod at what he saw was a tender spot. Instead, he sank down into his chair and yawned. The jump to Corneria couldn't come soon enough.

But just as Fox's thoughts turned to his home planet again, he heard a sharp, "Shit," from Falco.

"Make a mistake in your calculations?" Fox asked him.

"I wish. No, four heavily armed cruisers just arrived."

"Unbelievable. They're still looking for us," Krystal said, standing up and positioning herself between Fox's and Falco's seats.

"Will we be able to get out in time?" Fox asked.

"The link to Lylat will be established in less than a minute. They're running a sensor sweep of all the ships here," Falco said, hands flying over controls. "They're looking for you two"

Fox held his breath. If they didn't finish their sweep before Falco could get them through to Lylat, they'd be lucky. If the sweep found them… Fox doubted they would hesitate to fire.

"I'm arming weapons," Falco declared as he swung the ship around to face their aggressors.

"I thought you said this thing was legal?" Fox asked, surprised and relieved.

"I said it was legal when I bought it. Doesn't mean it still is."

"That's our Falco," Krystal muttered.


	14. Chapter 14

Once Krystal had consciously realized she was awake, she jerked upright and put a hand to her bleeding forehead. Through foggy eyes, she groggily studied her surroundings. Before long, she recognized the small, dark, room she was sitting in as the cargo hold of Falco's ship. Fox stood with his head against a bulkhead. Krystal remembered what was behind it, and the thought sent the sinking chill through her throat: the cockpit.

"Fox…" she said, getting unsteadily to her feet. "He's dead, Fox." He turned, slumping his back against the massive metal barricade, which was designed to shut automatically in case of a depressurization in the cockpit. Krystal saw his face, and it caused Krystal great pain to behold it. He too was bleeding, and desperate tears diluted the crimson flow.

"He's not dead!" he yelled with a ferocity that stilled Krystal's nerves. She didn't know what to say to him, and, consequently, didn't try to. Fox fell into a sitting position on the floor, back still to the bulkhead.

Memories of what had happened were few and far between for Krystal, who'd been in and out of consciousness throughout the ordeal. There was a firefight, and the ship was damaged. Falco had told them to do something, but Krystal wasn't sure what. Seeing that she was wearing a partially donned pressure suit, they must've had a hull breach. At some point, they'd lost artificial gravity, she distinctly remembered that, but there was certainly something pulling down on her now.

"Fox, where are we? Did we make it through the gate?"

"I think. But it was malfunctioning… damaged. Falco…" but he wasn't able to say anymore. He made a strange choking noise and trailed off.

Krystal had trouble thinking, and her head throbbed as she tried to blink blood out of her eyes. She steadied herself against a metal crate, and looked around for the airlock. She had to open it, even if it there was nothing but vacuum on the other side. If they'd crash landed on Corneria, Krystal had to get out of the tomb she was beginning to feel trapped in.

The airlock was a manual release, fortunately, in case the ship should lose power. Krystal threw herself upon the wheel, and put as much force behind it as she could. It seemed to fight back, not giving way at all, and instead carving Krystal's hands to a bloody mess.

"Help me, Fox!" she cried desperately, starting to panic. She was sure the walls were closing in with very moment she couldn't open the door.

"Don't bother…" he said dejectedly.

"Son of a bitch, Fox, get off your ass and get this door open!" she yelled, voice breaking, revealing her terror. Her eyes were jammed shut so tightly she was sure she was bursting capillaries. Tears welled up, but couldn't squeeze out of her clenched eyelids. The door would never open, and they'd be left to starve in this god forsaken crypt! She became consumed by dread, having never known such unbearable helplessness.

But when a warm body pushed up next to her, her fears subsided. Strong, sturdy hands moved in alongside her trembling, chill fingers. Inch by inch, the wheel turned, and with every degree it rotated, Krystal was reassured in her safety.

When the airlock burst open, Krystal catapulted herself, stumbling, out onto the fresh, wet earth before her, falling to her knees. They'd crash landed. Falco, whatever his fate might have been, had brought them both to safety. Krystal, still shuddering looked up at the sky. It was blue, and wispy grey clouds drifted lazily around two suns. She wept to behold a sight so utterly beautiful.

Fox's footsteps approached behind her, and she heard him sigh. It wasn't a sigh of relief, however, but one of dismay and trepidation.

"Krystal… Corneria doesn't have two suns…"


	15. Chapter 15

Fox panted, dropping the rock heavily on the soggy earth below him as he leaned up against the marred, burned hull of the ship. He'd been hitting the rock against the forward viewport for the better part of an hour in hopes of freeing Falco from the cockpit. In an attempt to see past the one-way glass, Fox screwed up his eyes and leaned close to the window, wiping sweat from his face. Or was it blood? Tears?

Krystal, sitting on a metal crate from the hold, started in a soothing voice, "Come on, Fox. Leave it—"

"He isn't dead, Krystal." He interrupted calmly. He felt insulted.

"Be reasonable, Fox. We need to get moving."

"Where?" Fox asked, his calm breaking. "Where will we go, Krystal? You've already climbed to high ground to look for civilization, and you saw nothing but this forest," he motioned to the ancient deciduous towers surrounding them.

Krystal began to lose her own composure. "We'll never know unless we start walking! There's a small mountain just a few days from here, and if there are any settlements in the area, we'll be able to see them from there."

"You'd just leave Falco in there to die? Is that what you want?" Fox asked, raising his voice.

"He's dead, damn it!" Krystal barked. This quieted Fox. She could be quite intimidating when standing at her full height, as if something feral within her threatened to lunge out without warning.

Fox didn't bother answering, not feeling the need to repeat himself.

"What makes you so sure of it, anyway?" she asked after regaining her poise.

Fox stared down at the rock he'd been swinging for so long. How _did _he know? He wasn't even sure he understood this himself. It'd been explained to him once, by his father, upon the death of Fox's uncle.

Uncle Robert had died in the war, in one of the bombings of Corneria. Fox's father always did claim that he knew when he woke up in the morning that he would receive the call informing him of his brother's death. When Fox asked how he was so sure, he was, at the time, puzzled over the answer he got, being his parents' only child. "When your brother has died, you'll know it." Fox's brother had not died. Of this he was positive, and no doubt nagged at the edge of this notion.

But Fox didn't answer Krystal. Again, he felt no need to humor her will to argue against undisputable truth: Falco lived, and Fox needed only to break the glass that separated them to prove this to Krystal. He picked up the rock again, and situated his hands around it in the tightest grip he could get on it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Krystal start to walk off.

He refocused his attention on the glass. It had to have been weakened by his steady beating, at least slightly. Fox spread his feet, and lifted the rock above his head. He thought of Falco, wasting away inside that cockpit, marooned from the rest of the universe until someone cared to free him. Fox threw his weight forward, bringing the boulder down at the apex of his forward momentum, and felt the rattling jolt when it made contact, again, with the glass.

_CRACK!_

Fox's eyes grew wide as he laid eyes on the damage he'd done. Krystal turned around to look at Fox, who had eyes only for the hairline fissure that had appeared before him. Her face bore a look of sorrow, perhaps for Fox at what he might discover beyond the glass. As he swung the rock again and again, each time with more force than the last, Krystal stood rooted to the spot, watching Fox eagerly hack at that which kept him from his friend. With each swing, the glass made a pitiful creaking as the cracks widened.

When the glass finally shattered, Krystal turned away, holding her head low. She had hoped Fox would give up before that happened. Now he'd never be able to forget whatever he might see in that cockpit.

Krystal listened, but didn't watch, as Fox stepped into the ship. She heard pleading from Fox—a begging of Falco to wake up, to say something. Krystal felt her throat tighten, and she shut her eyes to blink the tears from them. It was too late for Fox now, too late to save for him what Krystal had lost the last time she'd used her powers.

She raised her head abruptly. The wind had carried to her sensitive ears a weak voice, one straining to speak at all. "What… took ya so long… Foxie?"

Krystal looked off into the distant mountains. She had been wrong. She shut her eyes again as Fox's rejoicings caressed her eardrums. Her hand rose up to support her now very heavy forehead. Falco lived, and Krystal was going to leave him to his death! Another innocent life taken by the survival instinct of Kursed.

She stared into the two suns, her back turned on the wrecked ship and its newly discovered survivor. She let her consciousness be swallowed by the intensity of a binary sunset while trying to swallow her own fears and doubts simultaneously. She'd wanted to badly to get her and Fox on the move, to what she thought would be safety. It was her own mistake, one that would've cost her that which she so desperately protected—Fox's happiness.

But if that was so important, why could she not rejoice in Falco's salvation? What bonds prevented her from running to Fox's side, presenting her aid to Falco and an apology to Fox? She could at least turn around and face him. But to look him in the eye… Krystal was afraid of what she would see there. Everything she feared would spring from Fox's eyes and into hers, shaking Krystal's limp mind like a rag doll that had failed to please its owner. She grimaced in anticipation of the pain.

But despite this, the fact remained prominent in Krystal's mind: Falco was alive. No matter what her subconscious tried to beat into her, this was a good thing. Krystal clung to that thought as she finally forced herself to walk back towards the only family she had left in the universe.


	16. Chapter 16

When night finally began to peek around the eastern horizon in the absence of the recently departed suns, Krystal sat before the fire she had made. The wrecked ship sat a few meters away, looking incredibly forlorn. She and Fox had, in complete silence, moved the all of the cargo out of the hold. Falco was lying on a makeshift cot in one corner, and from her vantage point, Krystal could see by firelight all his bandages and wrappings. His right arm and upper chest were wrapped in heavy yellow cloth bandages that Fox had made from one of the two blankets that had been on board. The other was folded up under Falco to keep him up off the cold steel flooring. His legs, which Krystal had never actually seen before Fox had ripped his flight suit's legs off to treat his wounds, were in particularly bad shape. His left leg was heavily bruised around the knee, but needed no bandaging. His right leg was tied to a splint, but that wasn't even visible for all the bloodstained yellow cloth wrapped around it—when they had lifted the console, they had discovered that a bit of twisted metal had stabbed into his thigh. By the time they'd stopped the bleeding, Falco was long unconscious. He was still out, and probably wouldn't be in any state to be moved any time soon. At the very least, he'd inadvertently spoiled Krystal's plans to pack up and leave.

Fox's condition was just as bad as Falco's. He sat opposite the fire from Krystal, and he just stared into flames, avoiding her eyes at all times, lest he should have to face them outright. She continued to watch him despite his unwillingness to make eye contact, and he clearly knew it. The fidgeting, nail-picking, and lip-gnawing didn't escape Krystal's notice. The one thing she could not see about Fox were the things going on within the confines of Fox's skull, the things that never did show on the outside. Granted, it was by choice that she did not "see" these things, but for years now, the fact that Krystal's mind would behave no differently than any other came to be accepted by Krystal as a necessity and a fact. But, even so, she yearned to know these things.

As flames danced between the two of them, Krystal found herself thinking of nothing but Fox. When she wasn't mindlessly studying his movements, she was wondering what his opinions on her behavior would be when he finally decided to vocalize them. Would they be reproachful? Scornful? Violent, even? Perhaps these things weren't to be feared at all, but embraced and joyfully anticipated like a holy absolution. Either way, things would eventually make themselves right between the two of them, and Krystal, though uneasy about the situation, tried to put her mind at rest.

But as soon as she had, another voice called out from another corner of her mind. This second opinion scolded Krystal harshly, and she furrowed her brows as she listened to what it had to say. Krystal felt her guilt quite painfully when the thought's central accusation became clear: _selfish._ She formed the word with her lips, feeling its harsh contours scrape her throat as she silently spoke the word to herself. _Selfish._

No. This love wasn't selfish at all. It was concern for Fox that had been the driving force in the rela—but the defensive mechanism was cut short when the dissenter within her pointed out that concern for Fox had landed them in this whole nightmare. Stranded them on an empty planet! This silly thing she'd been passing off as love was nothing more than Krystal bringing pleasure to Krystal by satisfying one of Krystal's underlying needs: to, out of paranoia, safeguard a good thing like it was a part of Krystal's body, for good things only came to Krystal every so often… Or was that particular underlying need one of Kursed's? She wasn't sure she could tell anymore.

No longer preoccupied with Fox, and having finally managed to arrange a cease-fire between the two factions within her own self, Krystal stood up and walked past the fire in Fox's direction. She stopped by his side, looking down at him when she knew he would not return the favor. He continued to stare at the fire, ignoring her.

"Fox." She had forced his hand. Now he _had_ to look up.

He did so, slowly. Krystal tried to smile, hoping it hadn't come out looking like a grimace or a scowl.

"Come on. It's late, and we need sleep," she said softly. She held out a hand to help him up—a peace offering.

But to Krystal's profound dismay, he simply stood up without taking Krystal's hand, and walked back into the hold wordlessly.

Krystal, whose hand fell gently down to her side, shut her eyes and bent her head toward the fire.


	17. Chapter 17

At first light, Krystal woke, having determined over the course of a particularly sleepless night what she would do when the suns rose. After rooting through the crate full of stockpiled food they'd scrounged from around the vessel, she removed a small protein bar. Within thirty seconds, it was being digested in her stomach. Compared to her typical dietary habits back in Kew City, this was a generous meal. Stomach full, she checked to be sure Fox and Falco were still sleeping. When she'd identified both as thoroughly unconscious, she quickly changed out of her unnecessarily tight jumpsuit and into a tank top and trousers, both Falco's. He certainly wouldn't need them any time soon, and, being as skinny as he was, the clothes fit Krystal fairly well. She would've stayed in her jumpsuit, but the outfit that was suitable in Kew's chilly atmosphere certainly wouldn't serve her well in this balmy, humid environment, warmed as it was by multiple stars. She also found an old rucksack in one of the crates, and it soon went from being empty to being burdened with pile of non-perishable food and a small jug of water. She gambled that she'd come across a stream somewhere along her way, as she gauged the likelihood of this as being relatively high.

Having slung the bag over her shoulders, she came to the last item on her mental checklist—weapon. She retrieved her pistol from under her pillow and re-cocked it. This woke Fox. Krystal took the opportunity to enlighten him on her plans.

"I'm heading for that mountain I told you about. I'll be back tomorrow."

Fox muttered groggily, "I thought you said it was a few days away?"

"That was when I thought you were coming with me," Krystal said coldly, stowing her gun in its holster. "Take good care of Falco while I'm away."

"Don't worry. I won't be leaving him for dead or anything," he replied, rolling over to face away from Krystal.

_It wasn't supposed to be this way,_ she thought as she walked through the open airlock into the cool, damp, morning air. Her relationship with Fox wouldn't be a pressing matter for these next couple of days, and Krystal was glad for the vacation. She rubbed the remaining sleep from her eyes, blinked a few times to ensure that her vision was up to its usual keen self, and set out at a moderate jog, given the uneven terrain.

Krystal's mind quickly drained of the aimless rumination and troublesome worry that usually filled it to the point of overflowing. To her, running was a respite from these burdens. It was a thing in which she could completely immerse herself. Whether it was across the hills of Cerinia, through the halls of the Great Fox, or on the streets of Kew, she'd always found time to run. There was always something elegant and simple in the motion of falling gracefully from one foot to the other. Something hypnotic, even. Left, right, left, right… Krystal found herself lost in her strides, only processing her surroundings subconsciously.

But reality reasserted itself when Krystal's foot snagged on something, not only disrupting her rhythm, but also her balance. She sprawled out on the ground, bruising her snout and twisting leg around nearly backwards. Panting and wincing, she got to her feet, clutching her leg where it had been twisted, the pain ebbing and flowing through it in waves. No matter how blissful ignorance was, the physical world still kept her on a tight leash.

She looked around; got her bearings. The forest has gotten denser around her while she ran, and she had taken no notice. The wind whistled through the leaves above, reminding her that the trees were sitting in their towers, watching her to see what she would do next. Their bark was ancient and beautiful, flowing in sensuous curves around their thick, supple trunks to spread their roots firmly into the wet earth below them, that they may suck life from the fertile breast of the earth itself. They threw out strong braches, fanning around as if swung about by centrifugal force, stretching up, up, to bask in the glorious bath of warm, yellow sunlight that swept down to embrace its green children with the affection of a mother holding her child.

Krystal felt the life around her, rich in all its unmoving magnificence, the pleasures of which she had deprived herself for so long striking her heart as if she had met a long-lost friend… or a long-forgotten lover.

The pangs bouncing around her mind from her twisted ankle brought Krystal's gaze to the spot where she had fallen. The displaced soil was clearly visible, and in its wake was a small green sprout, flattened by her bulk when she had skidded to a halt face-first.

Amidst this trove of glorious flora, the haphazard ways of Krystal's past had taken another life.

She turned and looked off in the direction on the mountain. Its peak rose above the treeline, imposing itself upon Krystal's determination. She started off toward its slopes, but she felt it would be more suitable to walk than to run.

The farther she walked, the closer together the trees came. Eventually, the trees became so numerous, and each so massive, that Krystal could see little ground beneath a thick carpeting of roots, all entangled around themselves, clinging to each other as if huddled in fear. The canopy of foliage above her became ever more dense, blotting out all but the most resolute rays of sun, giving Krystal the notion of a ceiling. Each footstep made a soft clunking noise of plastic on wood, and the effect was magnified by the closeness of the air.

Just as she was walking past a particularly large tree trunk, it occurred to Krystal that she had not seen any indigenous life whatsoever, barring trees. Not only did this trouble her because of its unorthodoxy, but also for the simple fact that when Falco's stockpile of edibles ran dry, there would be no readily available food for them to eat. Krystal quickened her pace, although she could no longer see the mountain up ahead for the dense layer of leaves over her head.

When Krystal stopped at what her internal clock told her was midday to eat, her environment was telling her it was night. Sunlight no longer permeated the canopy in the slightest, but she did take note of the fact that the way ahead was dimly lit, as if by some unseen lantern. Either way, she was left to guess what the time of day was outside of the forest. Her eyes combed the darkness of the expansive forest as she carefully chewed her dry, nearly tasteless ration. She felt like something was hiding in those shadows, watching her eat.

Shouldering her pack, Krystal stood up, and took a quick look back the way she had come. Empty. Nothing but trees as far as she could see. She softly let out a breath, turning her head to continue on her way.

But just as she did, she let out an echoing yell as she fell to the ground, adrenaline shooting through her veins. Standing just there, inches from her face, had been pair of deep golden eyes, crowned with cerulean fur. But from her seat on the ground, taking sharp breaths and shaking from head to toe, she saw no one there. Empty forest.

She got up to her feet once more, but her legs didn't feel entirely stable. Staring at the spot where she had seen the face, she felt sure in herself that it hadn't been vacant moments earlier. The path ahead was clear, and Krystal, taking deep breaths to calm herself, felt compelled to carry onward through the wood.


	18. Chapter 18

The night dragged on as Krystal continued her climb. Each step made the air around her thinner, and the slope below her aching feet steeper. Chills raced down Krystal's spine, surging through her appendages and flying off the ends of her fingers and toes, leaving her bones frozen and her fur on end. As Krystal pushed ahead, the woods grew denser, as if they huddled together for warmth.

The eyes she had seen kept showing themselves in her mind's eye. They were familiar somehow, but seeing them here felt out of place. Their urgent gaze made Krystal consider stopping for the night, or turning back. But whenever she was on the verge of stopping, she'd see a glint of movement off in the distance. Curiosity, more than anything, fueled her march and fended off drowsiness.

The sound of her own heavy breathing made itself apparent as the only sound Krystal could hear. She stood still and held her breath, giving her ears the opportunity to grope around in the night for sounds. No wind rattled the leaves overhead. No insect made any sound. Krystal let out her breath, seeing it disperse before her in a cloud of steam, and it echoed through the forest, coming back to her a hundredfold from all directions, as if a multitude of silent souls were breathing in unison. She tried to ignore it and continued further in and higher up.

But just when Krystal thought she must be close to the summit, the forest ended abruptly. She found jagged rock beneath her feet, and saw stars overhead. She had reached the summit. Panting from her climb, she took a drink from her water as she walked to the center of the broad, open rock face.

The world below her was small. Krystal looked down upon this planet, peering through the haze of darkness to make out the land so many miles below her. It all seemed shrunk down, as if Krystal had suddenly become a god sizing up her creation. Mountains rose up from the black earth, starlight swirling on their peaks like white dancers in the night. Rivers curled around their wide bases, caressing the rocks lovingly as they raged across flatlands to sculpt the land into jagged, unforgiving shapes. Eventually, they all opened up in great mouths, their work finished, submitting themselves fully to the vastness of the sea, upon which writhed millions of tiny lines, each drawn by a breath of wind.

But as beautiful as the sight was, Krystal felt no joy. As far as she could see, no civilization made their home in the land before her, or ever had. If anyone did live here, they hid themselves well. Krystal started back down the mountain, feeling the cosmic emptiness of the barren planet in her gut, but only moments after she'd taken the first steps towards the valley in which Fox and Falco waited for her eventual return, the sky filled up with streaks of crimson and gold, and a faint sound like the rippling of blankets whispered in Krystal's ears. Before she even had a chance to consider the cause of such a phenomenon, a sharp, burning pain shot up her left arm. The sandy fur there, which was finally showing signs of its natural pigmentation's gradual return, was quickly becoming matted by the steady ooze of blood from a searing cut below her shoulder. Looking back up at the sky, where the streaks were growing brighter and more frequent, Krystal broke for the cover of an overhanging rock on the side of the mountain face.

_Excellent,_ she thought to herself. _The planet has a micrometeor problem._

At any rate, it explained why nothing less hardy than an ancient tree survived on the planet's blackened surface. Krystal sank to a sitting position under her rocky shield, mind swimming in a tumultuous maelstrom of worry and dejection that threatened to overwhelm her already overtaxed consciousness. She did her best to push these things out of her thoughts as the fiery rainfall continued to pelt the stone all around her. Leaning back against the mountain wall, she shut her golden eyes and let her exhaustion wash over her.

Before long, the back of Krystal's eyelids began to light up like a projector screen. Imagery flashed before her, jumbled and totally indecipherable. Pain and pleasure became caught up in each other, and, when Krystal could no longer tell them apart, she began to clearly see the path ahead. It was made of stone, lined with wilting flowers and wintry, barren branches. The cold, blue sun of Kew burned like an angry torch on the horizon. Krystal walked carefully down this path, towards the dying star at its end.

A figure appeared, standing on the path ahead, blotting out the sun's unforgiving glare. Krystal walked more quickly towards it. The closer she got to its dark outline, the more detail she could see. Violet fur, golden trappings, and a glistening gem atop a high forehead. Krystal sank to her knees before this commanding figure. It wore an expression of incense and held a pointed spear in its right hand.

Looking down at Krystal, it said with a booming voice that shook the earth, "How dare you turn your back on your birthright?"

Filled with conviction, Krystal replied in a small voice, "I'm sorry… I had no idea…"

"Lies! You've abandoned your past, retreating into yourself in hopes of healing your wounds." Krystal swayed, seeing the great figure bearing down on her. "Your responsibility will either see you rise to its call, or see you turn away and die. Your opportunity for redemption will reveal itself. Take it when it does."

When it had finished speaking, the path, the flowers, the sun, and the entire world around Krystal melted away into the speaker's eyes, which grew brighter and brighter in the void until Krystal finally awoke.

She saw everything around her just as she had left it. The meteor storm had subsided, and the early morning sun filled the sky with warmth. Krystal stood up, taking deep breaths to steady herself. She shouldered her pack and began walking towards the camp, her mind quietly sifting through the solemn contents of her dream as her body carried her home. The trees offered her company throughout her walk, and Krystal felt their presence as a comfort.

When she arrived in the valley where the wrecked ship had landed, Fox was standing by the fire, which he hadn't let die while she had been gone. She saw Falco standing in the shuttle's doorway on a makeshift crutch fashioned from a large stick. He was smiling as much he could manage around his beak.

Krystal dropped her pack to the ground as she passed the fire, and took Fox in her arms without a word. After a moment's hesitation, he accepted the motion and put his own arms around Krystal.

"I missed you," Krystal muttered in his ear.

"I know," he replied.


	19. Chapter 19

Fox could see the apology welling up in Krystal's throat before it spewed forth from her lips.

"Fox, I'm so sorry—"

"Shut up," Fox said sharply, putting a finger over Krystal's beautiful snout. As his finger lay reprovingly on her lips, he immediately regretting putting it there, when his own lips could've been in their place. He quickly righted his wrong, drawing Krystal up into the kiss he'd been waiting so long for. He could feel her laughing silently beneath his osculatory pressings. This kiss had been three days in the making, and it was only matched by the one they'd shared that'd been three years in the making. With a gentle _pop,_ they separated.

Krystal started again, "When I left here yesterday, I didn't think—"

"Yesterday?" Fox cut her off for a second time, knowing for a fact that Krystal had not left the day before.

"You've got to be kidding," she said, her smile being reabsorbed into her hard face. "There was a meteor shower, right?"

"Yeah, there was. It did some serious damage to the—"

"I don't want to hear it right now. Tell me how long the meteor shower lasted."

Fox looked at her incredulously. "What's the problem here? Did I miss something?" Krystal was growing angry. Fox wasn't used to seeing her with such a short fuse. Then again, he wasn't even used to seeing her yet.

"Would you just tell me?" she snapped.

Fox paused. It was hard to think while keeping eye contact with that cold stare. "Um. A day and a half, I think," he said without much confidence.

She turned away, cursing. He looked inquiringly over his shoulder at Falco, who'd been watching the events play out from a safe distance. Falco shrugged meaningfully, wearing an expression that clearly said, "How am I supposed to know?"

Fox started after Krystal, who was walking now towards the embering fire. When he reached, he grabbed her firmly by the shoulders, turned her around to face him, and looked her in her fiery eyes.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on, or do I not deserve to know what could possibly dent your iron will?"

For a long moment, Krystal said nothing. Before long, though, her eyes softened to their usual, golden selves, and her expression weakened until it looked so feeble that Fox could cry to behold it. "You do," she said with great effort.

"Then sit down," Fox said softly, releasing her from his grasp.

She obeyed, sitting on a log. Fox took a seat across from her. "I didn't return when I said I would because I was… asleep."

Fox raised his eyebrows.

"It was during the meteor shower. I was stranded under a rock, and I fell asleep there. I dreamt."

"For a day and a half?" Fox asked calmly. She nodded, and continued.

"I dreamt of a path. And a woman. She told me that I'd forsaken my birthright, and that I'd die if I continued this way."

Fox's heart clenched at the thought of Krystal's death. "And that means?"

"It means I haven't used telepathy!" she spat, making eye contact with Fox for the first time since she sat down. "I haven't used it since shortly after I fled to Kew. But that's not important."

"That's a lie," Fox said in response. "Tell me."

"I already told you, it's not important," she said hastily.

"Krystal! Anything that can make you stammer is very important. At least to me."

"You have no idea—"

"Which is a problem that's easily remedied. Fill me in."

Krystal took a deep breath, looking down at Fox's feet. She spoke, but very little tone colored her speech.


	20. Chapter 20

As Krystal recounted the memory to Fox, her mind relived the buried account for the thousandth time. She told Fox about the crime lord she'd been hired to kill, and about how she had no notion of where to find him. She'd chased down a suspected member of the gang, and dragged him into an alley. She leaned him up against a dumpster. Much of his face was shrouded both by the veil of night and the ever-present haze that lingered in Kew City's air. Obscured as it was, Krystal had no problem seeing that the man was terrified.

"I don't know! I don't know!" he cried, tears and blood running down his face from where she'd beaten him. She didn't believe his words for a second. He knew where her target could be found, and he was going to tell her. Unless…

The thought crossed her mind that using her telepathy could unearth the information she needed, and that he needn't say a word. She dove into his mind without delay.

Before long, she found herself surrounded by swirling thoughts, afloat in a chaotic sea of notion and emotion, the alleyway and the dumpster having dissolved into incoherent thoughts and voices. The man's mind was red with fear, and as Krystal made her way through the thick clouds to find what she sought. She pushed deeper, farther in, putting an intense pressure on the man's psyche to give up trying to hide it.

The screams sounded dully in Krystal's ears, as her environment became more desperate, the man's fears more real. It became clear that he was experiencing pain, most likely caused by her unscrupulous pushes into the darkest corners of the man's soul. His panic swirled about her as she clawed violently at his resolve, his abject terror growing more and more intense until—

Blackness. Emptiness. A great, open nothing pressed in around her, an unimaginable cold sucked at her body, filling her with a dread of living. Dizzy, she made a terrible effort to extract herself from the man's mind.

He sat before her, hunched over, eyes glazed and mouth open, a small trickle of blood flowing from his nose. She'd killed him, and had experienced death firsthand via telepathy.

Fox, eyes full of the pain she felt in her stomach, spoke softly when Krystal had finished talking. "I want you to read my mind."

Krystal looked up at him. Had he not been listening? How could he ask such a thing of her! He had clearly missed her whole point, and just when she thought he'd be the only one to understand. She suppressed her rage when she asked coldly, "Why?"

"Trust me."

It took a moment of hesitation, but she decided that she did trust him. She swallowed her fears, and prepared herself for a plunge that she'd not taken in years. Gasping, her mind slipped, with great effort and remembered pain, into Fox's. Her eyes were shut tight as she opened them to Fox's thoughts. They stood around her, welcoming her into their gracious company. Krystal sighed heavily as she registered the only emotion present in Fox's mind, which was showering down around her like a warm rain: love.


	21. Chapter 21

Fox, still sitting on the log, felt nothing. He never did when Krystal had read his mind in the past. It had always been such an intimate thing, and yet, Fox could never even be sure if Krystal had read him or not. It was certainly something he didn't understand, and it was a very awkward thing to think or talk about. But this time, he had to concentrate on positive things, things he wanted her to be aware of.

Krystal sat up straighter, eyes still shut tight, and gasped as if she were witnessing something particularly breathtaking.

After a few minutes of waiting, concentrating as hard as he could on loving and reassuring thoughts, Fox found himself blurting out of curiosity, "What do you see?"

"You," she said quietly.

Fox bit his lip. He wished so badly that he could feel something, even if it was painful. Anything would be better than waiting through the silent agony he felt, knowing nothing of what was happening in Krystal's mind, or even his own. He endured it, just like he used to, but only because it brought such joy to Krystal. Keeping this fact prominent in his mind, Fox bit harder on his lip and closed his eyes, determined to keep his concentration up long enough to let her do whatever she needed to start the healing process.

"Fox," she said softly, her old accent more pronounced than it had been as of late, "Thanks for that." Fox opened his eyes to look at her. Hers were open too, looking into his own.

"Anything," he said hastily, embarrassed that he hadn't realized that she'd stopped reading him.

"Listen. Aside from something minor stuff, like this…" she trailed off

"Yeah?" Fox asked tentatively.

"I don't want to use my powers. Not like I used to."

"Krystal, don't do this—"

"I don't understand them, Fox. I learned that when I learned I could kill people with a single thought!"

Fox couldn't respond. At least, he was afraid he would do more damage if he did, despite how much he resented the notion of a Krystal who refused to use such extraordinary power.

"I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I understood it all. I thought I knew what I was doing," she said. She got to her feet, pacing and watching the ground as she spoke. "Telepathy had always behaved so predictably before. It was so simple!"

"Krystal—"

"No, Fox! An innocent man is dead because I didn't know what the hell I had! I was just doing my job, and then—he was—" Her throat was clenching up to where she couldn't speak anymore.

"Look, I hate to point it out, but you killed a good number of people while you were bounty-hunting," Fox tried to say reasonably. "Why was this one any different?"

She looked down at him. "You could never understand it," she said around her swollen larynx. "It's like someone just… turned out the lights. And nothing was left…" She stared off into space.

"You're right. I don't get it." Fox got to his feet and walked to Krystal's side. "But what I think _you_ don't get is just how valuable your gift is." She stopped staring and looked back at Fox wearily. "Think about how many ambushes we've been bailed out of because you were able to warn us. Think of the number of lives you've saved, compared to the number lives you've taken with this power. That's, like, infinity to one! And, if you _had_ been using your powers when we landed here, we wouldn't have come as close as we did to leaving Falco behind. Krystal, you underestimate just how much this is worth to us—to me."

Krystal's chest heaved. She waited a long time before saying anything, apparently still digesting Fox's words. Her face was blank.

But, just when Fox had feared that he'd crossed a line, she spoke to him smoothly, "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

"Not often. But when you do, I get the impression that you mean it."

Fox smiled to himself. He'd forgotten how satisfying it was to see Krystal laughing with tears still in her eyes. Whenever he managed to get this to happen, he figured he'd done his job, and done it well. Krystal leaned into Fox's shoulder, getting his shirt nice and wet. He just hoped she'd taken what he said to heart. He didn't mention it, but more than anything, he was worried about the dream she had described to him. The part about Krystal dying if she refused to use her "birthright" was particularly unsettling to Fox's ears.

"Come on," Fox said, "You look hungry. Let me get you something." He sat her down on the leg again, and retreated back into the ship.

"How's it goin'?" Falco asked as Fox came in.

"Fine," he answered as he began rooting through their stash of food. It wouldn't hold out much longer.

"I heard some yelling out there. She broken any of your limbs yet?"

"Give it a rest, Falco."

"Psh. Resting's the _only_ thing we've been doin' here."

Fox quickly left with some dried meat before Falco could start ranting again about how bored he was. Between his griping and Krystal's existential crisis, he wasn't sure if he'd stay sane much longer.

Giving the food to Krystal, he sat, again, on the log opposite her. She ate quietly, and Fox passed the time by rubbing his forehead. His mind was full of useless deliberation and reflected reflections, and it was giving him a headache. Krystal was worth it, if anything was.

"What about you? Have you eaten?" Krystal asked, offering Fox some of her meal.

"What?" he was jerked from his ruminations by the simple question. "No, I'm… I mean—yes, I have, I… What?"

She smiled. "Hunger. Do you have any?"

"Oh, no. No, I don't need anything."

She threw him a strip of jerky. "You don't lie much, do you?"

Catching the meat, he held it, realizing that he wasn't at all hungry. "No, I really don't need anything." He threw it back. "Honest." He forced a smile in hopes that it would put Krystal's heart at ease.

_CRASH!_

Fox's ponderings were cut short by what was unmistakably a sonic boom overhead. Krystal had heard the sound too, for she jumped up and looked skyward as if someone had flipped "red alert" switch in her mind.

"They came," he whispered.

"Who came?" Krystal asked in a clipped tone.

"Oh! I never told you," Fox said quickly, "Falco and I got the comm system up and running while you were away. We sent out an FTL transmission towards Lylat before the meteor shower destroyed our equipment. Someone must've come for us!"

Krystal was still looking intently up at the sky, searching for the source of the boom. Visibility was low in the evening sky, but Krystal was soon pointing towards something dark that was just coming out from behind a cloud.

"There," she said, but she'd hardly finished before another boom rattled the sky.

"Someone come?" Falco asked brightly, stepping out of the wrecked shuttle.

"Not funny, Falco," Fox said, not taking his eyes off the sky. He had, like Falco had, seen the irony in what he'd just said. However, unlike Falco, Fox had not seen the humor.

After lumbering over on his crutch to join Fox and Krystal in their sky-gazing, Falco asked, "I heard two drop in. Where's the second one?"

"I only see the one…" Krystal said.

"There!" Falco pointed off to the other side of the sky, where another, similar dark shape had just come into view.

But more surprising than the fact that not one but two ships had come to their rescue was the fact that they began to fire upon each other. The brilliant flare of hundreds of rockets and plasma cannons illuminated the twilight. The two gargantuan spacecraft bore down upon each other like titans, exchanging fire with merciless determination and frightening accuracy.

The three watched on quietly as the battle raged overhead. Both ships launched squadrons of fighters, which formed a swirling cloud of brightly flashing death between the two starships. Every few seconds, an intense white glare would herald the explosion of one craft, and the loss of one life. After a few minutes of this, the tightly knit wad of fighters had thinned down to a handful, and it became clear which side would win the victory when the ship that had appeared second erupted in a series of blinding balls of light. What remained of it plummeted towards the ground below like a great, flaming, rock.

"Damn," Falco said aptly.


	22. Chapter 22

The captain, surrounded by dancing flame, stood on the bridge of his ship, the now doomed _CSS Epiphany_. Many thoughts were racing through his mind. The memories of battles past recounted themselves at the back of his mind. Fear bubbled like a festering tar pit in his subconscious. His sensory intake was flooded with electric flashes, the roar of a rushing fire, desperately screaming crewmen, the odor of burning flesh and red hot metal, the distressed yell of blaring klaxons, the wrenching scrape of metal fatigue as the ship was sheared apart in its nosedive, and the sense of near-weightlessness that reminded him that his vessel was in freefall. The fury that he'd initially felt after the loss of the conflict had been completely covered over by the quietude that comes when one is waiting patiently for death.

He held his hands behind his back, watching the ground below approach like a wall. It wouldn't take long for the vessel to make impact, and when it did, everyone on board that wasn't already dead would perish. The mournful pain of knowing that countless hundreds of men and women under your command would perish was thrust through his heart like a broad-headed spear. They had been his responsibility, and, for nearly three years, he'd held this crew together in safety. But that was peacetime, something which didn't dare show its face in public during these times.

He found it hard to consider that it had only been a week since his ship had commanded to throw itself upon an enemy no one wanted to be fighting. Those seven days had pounded his mind and body into believing it had been hard at war for months. Close calls happened on a daily basis, and each member of the crew had been convinced at least once that the battleship wouldn't live to fight another day, and each time, they'd either escaped the danger or claimed an unlikely victory—but there was no escape this time. The damage was beyond repair, not to mention the fact that they'd be slamming into solid ground in just moments.

The captain took a deep breath. Now that the end was upon him, all his notions of death were being brought into question. He'd always imagined death to be something terrifying. This was reflected in the behavior of those around him—the very air reeked of panic and despair. But the captain didn't feel any of this. He was strangely peaceful. In the moments when his death was ensured by structural damage to the _Epiphany,_ he'd found coming to terms with this fact a simple, natural thing. Now he was left, his mind at rest, to contemplate the infinite in the eternity that remained to him before his life would be taken by the destructive forces of gravity.

Dull melancholy ebbed at the sides of the captain's stomach. If only he could be allowed more time… He'd been a fighting man all his life, and now, at the apex of his entire existence, he was being denied not only the right to live, but also the right to make war upon his enemies. However, on the other hand, he was getting old. It certainly did appeal to him more to die this way then to rot in some hospital, being kept alive longer than he would've liked by expensive drugs and intensive care.

Besides, there was something beautiful about a captain going down with his ship. It awoke a feral sense of honor deep within him, like the misplaced sense of duty that he'd struggled to find his whole life had suddenly been found. The euphoria of knowing what he had been missing since birth was quickly overshadowed by regret. Things he'd said, things he'd done, people he'd killed… He didn't deserve to die like a noble captain at all.

The captain took a deep, heavy breath. His uniform had caught fire, but he hardly took notice of it. He stood motionless, waiting for the death that he had eluded so many times. The vista beyond the now shattered viewport flew in and out of view as the great battleship spiraled. He could no longer make out any detail—the ground was too close. Instead, virescent streaks swept past him, the view hindered by the flames. He shut his eyes as the blaze enveloped him completely.

In the time it takes to blink, the captain felt the jarring of impact and was brutally thrown against the floor as all of the ship's inertia was neutralized. Moments later, he was flooded over by something icy cold and violently turbulent. He opened his eyes and looked around. Flames no longer licked at the walls of his bridge. Instead, thick, cloudy water filled the chamber. They'd landed in the sea!

But the fact that he'd been given a new lease on life was immediately swallowed by survival instincts. The sunlight still visible through the shattered viewport was quickly growing more distant as the vessel sank beneath the waves. The captain moved for it desperately, thrashing at the sluggishly stirring waters. Each move he made tore at his back, which he suspected had been broken by the impact.

By the time he was at the opening's threshold, the surface was already like a distant window, on the other side of which waited life. He kicked up, out of his bridge and into the ocean, but was jerked back by an intense pain in his leg. Swinging around to look, he saw that his leg had been snagged by a jagged piece of glass as wide as a book and as long as a knife. It had sunk deep into his flesh, and was dragging him down with the ship. He pulled himself loose in a cloud of blood that rose silently around him like vapor.

He thrust himself upward with the last of what he had. His lungs felt crushed by the water that filled them. Looking ahead, he saw the glistening surface hundreds of feet away. He choked on the icy fluid, and his tears were lost in the vastness of the sea as he reached for the light that had the power to redeem him. He, Wolf O'Donnell the Third, captain of the Cornerian spaceship _Epiphany, _was to meet his end here, alone, his body broken, his spirit unwilling to go.

His last thoughts, drowned in the void, were of Fox McCloud, for whom there was so much left to tell. In a life spanning from hardened mercenary to national war hero, his greatest regrets were of those things left unsaid to McCloud. They died with him at the bottom of that ocean, swept away by chill waters.


	23. Chapter 23

"There it is again," Krystal said, pointing towards the clear night sky, where a glimmering star crept across the vista. She was lying on the ground, head propped up on one of the logs.

"That's five times now!" Falco cried out in vexation.

The light continued to crawl through the stars, and, before long, it winked out behind the treeline.

"It's still orbiting?" Fox asked, stepping out from the shuttle.

"Yes…" Falco and Krystal answered unanimously, neither bothering to look over at Fox.

Fox sighed. "Is it possible they just haven't found us yet?"

"If the bastards were looking for us, they wouldn't be in that wide of an orbit" Falco's voice drifted lazily.

Fox moved to take a seat next to Krystal, but she recoiled to leave a generous few feet of space between them. Biting his lip, he suppressed the antagonism erupting in his stomach. Krystal's rudeness and unpredictability aside, Fox reminded himself that he wouldn't be so madly in love with her if she were predictable.

"That ship's clearly waiting for something. It's either expecting its allies to show up, or it's expecting that downed cruiser's allies to show up. Probably both. If it is interested in finding us, it's likely that they're waiting for back-up so that they can leave the sky under guard while they look for us. On the other hand…" Krystal continued, but Fox stopped listening. Rather, he stopped comprehending. He certainly would never turn down the opportunity to idly listen to Krystal monologue.

But there was something different about her voice when she talked this way. As she thought out loud, Fox was exposed to facets in Krystal's thought processes that weren't there before—Krystal never used to drone like this, mindlessly rattling off her analysis of the situation. That had always been something she'd keep to herself, voicing her thoughts only once they'd had time to congeal in her mind. And why was she dichotomizing all this pointless information? He was used to seeing her brooding, relying on intuition and rumination to bring her conclusions to sensible ends, not spouting facts and trying to sift through it logically like a computer.

This side of Krystal was… calculating. Fox was unsettled to see her doing something so alien.

He tried to clear his mind of such things. Scooting himself to a respectful distance from where Krystal lay muttering to the night about that battleship, he laid down on the cool, firm dirt to sleep.

As he was finally falling into the spiraling darkness of sleep, he heard distantly, as if through a wall, "Shut up, Krystal!" If he'd been awake enough to do so, Fox would've smiled. Falco telling Krystal to stop talking: the greatest role reversal of Fox's lifetime.

But such pleasant frivolity was short lived, for when Fox passed from the land of the living to the land of the sleeping, his dire situation became so much more apparent. His anxieties, his fears, his worries, all were now tangible, dancing about him, tormenting his curled, defeated form. No seraphic ally was present to ward off the demons. His father, his lover, his friend, no one remained to comfort him. Fox wept to be so alone.

Heart still heavy, he stood up to find himself on a worn stone pathway. It was lined with shrubbery, but any green it may have offered had been consumed by the fire which enveloped even the tallest and mightiest of the trees. A massive star hung in the sky above, dominating they fiery heavens with its intense proximity and convicting bearing. He coughed at the thick, hot, air as it burned his insides, corrosive and abrasive at it was. Fox grew unimaginably heavy, being brought to his knees by the force of his own weight, for he could no longer support it.

He knelt in prostrate submission to the great violet figure before him. It was as tall as a dozen average men, and it wore brilliantly shining metal from its shoulders and waist. Its eyes seemed to be forged from solid gold, and its dark shape was violently familiar in his mind. Such was her beauty that he felt his neck lose the will to support his head—he bowed it before her. Fox silently stared at the stonework below him as words issued from her mouth like fire, and the world trembled to hear such a voice.

"You will return. You will run like a child, but you will all return to retrieve what you left behind."

Fox's knees could no longer take the strain. The immense force of gravity shattered his kneecaps, pulling him into a prone position from which he could not budge. He desperately made to cry out, but the air was too thick to even bother trying to breath. He felt a rib snap in his chest. As more broke off and clawed at his lungs and guts, the blood came gushing from his mouth. His tears were pulled from his face to boil away as they landed on the superheated stone. His vision clouded as blood vessels began bursting in his eyes. The pressure built up above him, pushing down mercilessly like a vice, tightening steadily more by the second.

"Fox!"

At this, he screamed. He cried out with all the anguish he hadn't been able to let out while asleep.

"What the hell, Fox!?" It was Falco. Fox desperately tried to regain his composure. Dreams had never done this sort of thing to him before.

Now taking long, rattling breaths, Fox rolled over onto his back. The fur on his face was caked in dirt and tears, but he could make out Falco standing over him, the sun rising somewhere off in the distance.

"Falco…" he murmured. He found that his mouth was having trouble making words.

"Don't be a pussy. It was just a dream." Fox couldn't decide if there was any concern hidden in those words or not, but Falco held out a hand nonetheless, and Fox took hold of it to pull himself upright. Standing was a chore on his weak, shaky legs.

"Where's Krystal?" Fox muttered, supporting himself on Falco's shoulder.

"Don't know. She ran off. That's when I tried to get you up."

"Ran off? Where?"

"I told you, I don't know," Falco's voice was laced with irritation now. Fox decided it was time to get off his shoulder.

Just then, Krystal came bursting from the forest.

"Who screamed?" she said, skidding to a halt in front of them.

"Me," Fox replied wearily.

Krystal looked at him for a moment, then continued. "Well, whatever. Listen; grab all your stuff, both of you. Two cruisers just landed a few miles away from here."

"We're leaving this damn rock!? Yes!" Falco rollicked, poorly concealing his excitement.

"I wish, but no. We've got to run. They're trying to kill us, not rescue us."

"How do you know?" Fox asked, his voice gaining its strength again.

"Have you already forgotten? I'm a telepath," Krystal said brusquely, grinning. "Now come on. They'll have already landed by now."

Fox picked up his gun and charged it, with some grief that he had to do so. He longed for the day when he'd be allowed to put it down.


	24. Chapter 24

"Krystal!" Fox called. She was getting dangerously far ahead, leaving Fox to linger behind with a Falco who could barely walk. "We need to stop!"

Slowing her pace, she skidded to a halt. "Fine," she said, walking back to join them. "But we'll need to pick it up again after we've had a rest."

Fox nodded, surveying their temporary resting place. Trees surrounded them, as they always did on this planet. They were beastly, grey things with knobbly roots that wrestled with the soil below in a messy tangle of wood and earth. Fox wished that they were… prettier. But alas, they'd had the misfortune of crash-landing on a planet heavily populated by ugly trees.

He turned his attention instead to Falco, who was leaning up against one of the monstrous plants. His face was adorned by a pitiable grimace, eyes shut tight, as he cradled his leg, which had begun to bleed again. His head was cycling between bowed low and thrown back, and he was drawing breath sparingly, as if holding it might pacify the fiendish pain that was consuming his leg.

When he finally managed to spit out a few words, he said, "I think it's opened again."

"Let me see," Fox said, bending over the injury. Fox ignored the, "Holy SHIT!" that echoed through the forest when he rolled the pants' leg past the wound, touching the hole by accident.

It was, to say the least, hideous. It certainly _had_ opened again, and was crusted in some sort of yellow paste that was congealing around the hole and caking up in mounds. Each time Falco's heart beat, another spoonful or so of fresh, glistening blood sloshed out of the cut. When Fox had sufficiently suppressed the urge to unleash the contents of his stomach unto the world below him, he retied the bandages.

After much groaning and cursing, Falco asked solemnly, "How's it look?"

Fox wanted so badly to lie to Falco, if only he could relay some positive news to his friend. He'd find out soon enough, though, so Fox told the truth, against his better judgment. "It's infected. And it's open again."

Neither of them said anything. Wordlessly, Fox managed to console Falco and calm his nerves using only a facial expression. Falco shut his eyes again, donning the grimace once more as Fox rolled the pants back down.

Krystal strode towards them. "Come on, we need to g—"

"Fuck you!" Falco cried with horrific ferocity. Perhaps he was overreacting, but Fox was inclined to agree with Falco on this one.

"Um…" Krystal said, looking quite startled and a little afraid.

Fox started calmly, "Krystal, he can't. His leg—"

"Will have to be put on hold," she interrupted. "We need to get out of here."

Fox saw what Krystal's thoughts were doing as if he were just as telepathic as she was. And yet, just identifying the problem didn't solve it, for he found himself engaged in yet another argument over this same subject. "Krystal, we can't just 'put it on hold.' He's bleeding—a lot!"

"I'm sorry, but our escape is a more pressing need. We just need to keep moving."

"Absolutely not! We're staying here until—"

"Shut up for a second." Krystal snapped. She was looking past Fox into the forest.

"Hell no! Falco's in no position to be mov—"

"Would you just shut up!" she barked. It wasn't a question.

And Fox obeyed.

"Do you hear that?" Krystal asked.

"Hear what?" Fox asked.

"There are bells. Church bells. But they're… not right."

Fox kept his mouth shut. On past occasions when Krystal had ever seen or heard something he didn't, he found it best to pipe down and let her figure it out. He watched as she walked off towards the "sound." Turning to look at Falco, who'd sunken to a sitting position by now, he gave a questioning look.

"Did you hear…?" Fox ventured.

"You kidding? You're the one with the ten-foot ears," Falco replied.

Fox rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm going to follow Krystal." He pulled his pistol from his belt and tossed it by Falco's side. "Take the gun." He started at a run towards where Krystal had wandered off. He yelled over his shoulder, "Don't let anyone come near you!"

He tore through the woods in the direction she'd left in, but Krystal must've moved fast, for she was nowhere to be seen. The trees grew closer together, and Fox's voice echoed strangely as he called Krystal's name. He stopped to get his bearings, panting. The adrenaline surged through his veins as the fear that he'd lost Krystal mounted in his chest.

"Krystal!" He listened, hoping to hear her voice.

And he did. Somewhere off to his left, he heard Krystal quietly reply, "Over here."

Fox joined her, coming to a standstill by Krystal's side. He said nothing, for, like Krystal, he was struck completely dumb by what he saw. And massive metal contrivance, large enough for three men to sit in, lay half-buried in the ground before them. It was tarnished to the point of being jet-black through, and looked like it hadn't been touched in millennia.

Krystal had found her bell.


	25. Chapter 25

Fox heard gunshots.

"Falco," he said, tearing his attention from the half-buried bell to turn about and look off in his friend's direction. The sound was distinctive, and Fox recognized the sound of his own firearm being fired in the distance.

But before he could react, he heard the sound of Krystal's weapon being cocked right at his side. He turned to look at her. Her fur, still a sandy tan, rippled in the wind. In response to a reflex that was triggered when she'd heard the gunshot, her shoulders tensed up, the powerful muscles just below that fur taut and ready to snap into a firing position at a moment's notice. They were banded across by a tight, colorless tank-top Fox hadn't really recognized before. It was one of Falco's. So were the trousers she had on. Given that the clothes certainly weren't hers, or even designed for women (certainly not vulpine women), they suited her well.

But, having absorbed all this information in the time it takes to blink, Fox had no time to say anything before Krystal was running off towards where they had left Falco. Fox followed her at a sprint.

It wasn't long before they found him. Fox saw, out of the corner of his field of view, Krystal's eyes widen. He felt his own do the same.

"They shot him," she said shakily.

Fox said nothing, for he was too busy comprehending the scene before him. Falco sat still against the tree, eyes closed. The gun Fox had left him lay a few inches from Falco's open hand. A large energy burn had incinerated much of his shirt, and the flesh below it was charred and bloodied.

"They shot him in the chest," Krystal said again, in disbelief.

Fox's hands were shaking violently, and he found that his voice had been shocked into silence. He stared down at his wing-mate, tears slowly filling his eyes. "No," he whispered with great effort, kneeling down to Falco's level. He put a trembling hand to Falco's neck. A pulse, that was all Fox prayed for. He tried to steady his hand to better search for that which would save his friend. If he could just see evidence of a heart beating, evidence of a soul burning, evidence that Falco still drew that glorious, life-giving breath that proudly proclaimed to the world that the last son of the Lombardi family was alive for all to see!

But Fox felt nothing there. No more breath was drawn through that beak, and no more blood was being pumped by Falco's heart.

"No!" Fox repeated. He stood up, clawing furiously at his face, as if he could scratch away the horrific sight below him. His heart raced, pumping for both himself and his fallen friend. Throwing back his head, a wail escaped from the pit of his spirit to resound around the forest with reverberations that came back to him from all sides, constricting about him like a venomous snake strangling its prey.

But, cutting off the cry, a silence asserted itself. Fox abruptly found that his head was no longer thrown back, and his hands no longer tore at his face. The bell, still half-buried, sat before him again.

"Falco," he said.

"What?" Krystal asked, turning from staring at the bell.

"I—Falco… what?" he stammered, utterly confused. It was as if the five minutes during which Fox and Krystal had discovered Falco's body had all happened, then been undone, and Fox and Krystal returned to where they were before it all had started.

"What is it? What about Falco?" Krystal asked, quickly becoming as confused as Fox.

"I don't know," Fox said in all honesty. He had to get back to him, but he knew in his gut that Falco Lombardi still lived. As his father had always said, "When your brother has died, you'll know it."

He turned and raced back to where he'd left Falco, reminding himself again and again that his wing-mate lived. His worst fear had been realized, and so vividly! It had been so real, as if the experience _had_ happened, all of it. The ringing gunshots, the disturbingly bloody wound, the mortifying emptiness deep within Falco's neck that Fox had felt with his own fingers. Fox shuddered at the reality, the surreailty of it all. The memories stood out in his mind as if someone had propped them up to catch Fox's attention, and they were bullying their way to the forefront of Fox's thoroughly shaken consciousness.

He came back to the tree that Falco had been sitting on. He walked slowly up behind it, seeing that Falco was still there. At least, his body was.

"Foxie!"

Fox's lungs let out all their ruefully held breath in a sigh of titanic proportions. Looking Falco in the eye, he said with apparent relief, "It's good to see you, Falco."

"Psh! You were only gone for, what, a minute and a half at most?" Falco said.

"I suppose so," Fox said, having no wish to explain to Falco what he had seen.

Krystal was just moments behind Fox. She arrived much less out of breath than Fox had been on his arrival. "What is it, Fox?" she asked. "What was that all about?" Falco looked from Krystal to Fox, as if asking for clarification.

"Nothing," he said. "I just thought I heard something, and I was worried that they'd found you." He motioned to Falco.

"Did you find your bell, Krys?" Falco asked, losing interest in the first topic of conversation as soon as it began to involve him.

Krystal looked a little unsettled at this. "No," she said shortly.

A strange combination of guilt, regret, and sorrow poured into Fox's heart as he began to count the number of secrets that were being held among the three of them. Upon self-examination, he found himself remorseful at the fact that he wasn't telling either Falco or Krystal about the strange things he'd been seeing on this planet, or even making small talk concerning the gaping, three-year hole that separated them—longer than that for Krystal. They were treating each other like strangers, so low was the level of trust and companionship amidst a party that could be called nothing but companions. Fox felt isolated and alone at this.

And yet, Fox couldn't drive himself to do anything about it. He convinced himself that all these things were irrelevant, despite the fact that he knew without doubt that they most certainly were not.

Falco was struggling to stand up. Without the help of the crutch he'd left at the crash site, this was quite a plaintive thing to watch. He was completely helpless, wincing in pain and embarrassment as he tried to pull himself up by the bark of the tree. He was just as alone as Fox was, struggling without aid from either of the "friends" that stood around him. Just when Fox felt that he would weep, he bent down to offer a hand of support to Falco.

"Thanks," he mumbled, avoiding eye contact with Fox. Fox caught a blot of red out of the corner of his eye. Falco's efforts to turn away and hide it were too late. Fox had seen that the blood had soaked through the bandage and was beginning to stain his pants. The wound wasn't closing after it had been reopened by the over-taxing of his wounded leg.

Fox turned to Krystal, but she was turning her back on the situation glacially, with an uncaring demeanor that repulsed Fox.

"Let's get moving. We've only been lucky that they haven't caught up to us yet."

Fox looked at her with profound contempt. "No. We'll take our chances."

"No, I'm fine. Let's go," Falco interjected.

"Absolutely not, Falco! Look at you. You're bleeding more and more every second you're not sitting down and resting!" Fox reasoned.

"It's just an old bandage, it's starting to stain the cloth. I'm not—"

"You are! You're losing blood faster than if you'd been shot in the chest!"

This threw Falco off. "What?"

Fox had no idea why he'd used that analogy, but he was resolute in the point it made.

"You're not going anywhere. You'll just lose more blood, and we'll end up losing you."

Krystal started, "Would you two shut up and—"

"No! Falco can't be moved, unless we—"

"I'll move myself, thank you very much! And if you think—"

Fox grew quiet as the argument reached its climax. Both Krystal and Falco were attacking him simultaneously. The idea of these people being strangers was reinforced in his mind.

But when a third voice called out, they all grew quiet.

"Hello! We're from the Cornerian Navy, and we're here to rescue you."

Five men in blue uniforms had just appeared out of the forest. They all wore patches on their chests bearing the flag of the Cornerian Alliance. Fox noted that their firearms were holstered, as opposed to in their hands, where Fox expected their pursuers' weapons to be.

"Er… Hi," Fox told the man with the most brass pins on his uniform.

He stepped forward. "Fox McCloud!" he said with a proud grin on his face. "_So_ pleased to meet you." He jovially shook Fox's hand. "And Falco Lombardi!" He shook Falco's hand next. He, like Fox, was silent in the turnaround of their situation.

When the man got to Krystal, he asked, "And you are…?" He hadn't recognized her, either because of fur color or the fact that Fox had been a national hero a lot longer then she had been.

"Nobody," came the reply from Krystal's lips.

The officer wasn't fazed, and shook her hand anyway. "Why were you running away from us?"

"I don't know," Fox said honestly, looking at Krystal. Why had she said they were hostile? He couldn't remember a time when Krystal's power had been inaccurate, but she had seemed sure of herself when she informed them that the party that had landed had Fox's, Falco's, and her deaths on their agenda.

"Anyway, we'll escort you three back to the _CSS Providence,_ where you'll be transported home to Corneria," said the man in a businessman-like tone.

"Lead the way," Fox said weakly.


	26. Chapter 26

Krystal found she had nothing to say as the five men led them back through the woods towards their landing shuttle. Their group totaled nine, and every instinct Krystal had acquired on Kew was reminding her that crowds were lethal, and whenever she was in the company of others, she wasn't nearly as secure as when she was alone, with only her wits to keep herself afloat and no burdens to drag her under the surface to drown as all that she held dear sank beneath the waves to fester for the rest of eternity…

She shook the notion from her head, startled at how quickly her thoughts had shifted towards drowning. The image of the bell she and Fox had encountered in the clearing flashed through her mind, and for an instant, the golden eye gave her a powerful glare.

Again, she shook the thoughts from her head, clouded as it was, muddled with images and omens she couldn't explain or comprehend. It made her head spin, and her stomach ache.

And what of these five men before her, leading her and her comrades onward through the ever-vigilant trees? What of their alignment? Had her powers again failed her? So sure she had been of their vile intentions, and now they graciously offered forth salvation. She bit her lip. What would Fox think?

Fox…

Her heart melted with love for him. She'd been so cruel to him, so closed-minded. Staring blankly at his back, which was facing her as he followed the men in blue, she cursed herself for being so cold.

But heart solidified again. He'd proven time and time again to be too attached, and his stubborn will threatened to get them all killed. She cursed herself for being so soft. Surely, a melted heart wouldn't sustain her life for long, and it would certainly do no good to sustain Fox's life, which she knew she had to preserve.

Ironic. Preserving a life you don't even care enough to cherish. But that was her curse, wasn't it? She'd run away because of it, she'd become a killer because of it, and now she'd wound up an unwilling bodyguard, all because of this terrible curse she had become.

"Here we are," said the man with the brass pins on his wide, blue collar, motioning to a large transport craft. Krystal noted a serial number on the door that they slid open, and gathered that this was likely a drop-ship designed for use by soldiers. The navymen filed aboard, Falco being supported by one of their number and Fox. Krystal hesitated a moment at the door, struck by a sudden urge to remain on the planet. She felt that she'd forgotten something, something crucially important.

"Get in." It was Fox. From his tone of voice, he'd already formed some misconception about Krystal and her mistake earlier. He probably thought she was lying to them, perhaps to protect herself. She could've read him to determine what it was specifically, but Krystal didn't want to know any more than she'd gleaned from his tone and demeanor. She climbed aboard, discarding the impulse to stay behind that she'd initially experienced.

As she ship spooled its gravity drives and rose from the ground, Krystal thought still more about the mistake Fox was now holding against her. Never before had her powers failed her like this. When she first saw the shuttle, the very one she rode aboard now, descending on the planet, she'd summoned up the energy to pry into the minds of the occupants. She didn't go far, but she saw, without so much as a shadow of a doubt, hostility. Looking over at the five of them, who were looking everywhere around the ship but at their passengers, she wondered if perhaps, she hadn't been mistaken at all.

A trap would've been brilliant enough, and having been so distracted, she'd let them all walk right into it. But they were Cornerian—surely they wouldn't anything against citizens of the nation they served. Fox and Falco were national heroes, but Krystal wasn't even a citizen... Perhaps _she_ had been the target of hostility. It certainly would explain quite a bit.

Deciding to risk reading one of them again, she leaned her head back against the wall of the ill-lit craft, and taking one last look at the slowly shrinking features on the surface of the planet below, shut her eyes, and moved her thoughts into the mind of the closest navyman to her.

His thoughts were many, and each was complex and precoordinated, and they filed past Krystal in an orderly fashion, implying a plan. He was carrying out orders. As for hostility, it was certainly present there, but it was in the back of his mind. For now, he concentrated on sending a transmission back to the _CSS Providence, _where the shuttle was returning. Opening her eyes and suppressing the memories of the dead man in the alley, she took a few deep breaths.

She turned to Fox and whispered breathlessly into his ear, "Fox, I think I may have been right the first time."

He replied flatly, "What? About members of the Cornerian navy wanting to kill us?" His tone stressed the ridiculous nature of such a scenario.

"Not necessarily, but I've just _seen_ into one of these men, and he's withholding something from us," she pleaded.

"You were wrong before and you're wrong now. I've worked with the Cornerian navy before, and I can promise you that they have nothing but our best interests at heart." He sounded annoyed that someone would imply such things about the Cornerian military. "You're not going to accomplish anything by lying to me."

"I'm not lying!" Krystal hissed.

"Something wrong?" the leader asked, Krystal last retort having caught his ear.

Fox cut Krystal off before she could say anything, "Nothing. She just gets spacesick."

Perhaps she _was_ wrong. She slouched in her seat, wondering if two years without using telepathy had made her powers rusty. But then again, she'd sensed so much love in Fox when she'd read him, and that had to prove that her second sight was in proper working order… didn't it? She was still unconvinced, although now with even more doubts riddling her thoughts, so that she was having trouble keeping them all straight. They wrapped around her like a chain, and pulled her down into the depths, never to see the sun again…

Krystal felt as though her powers had betrayed her. She'd gotten along without any problems without them on Kew. Why should she still need them? Here, now, for the first time in two years, she was using her abilities, and nothing good had come of it. Perhaps she'd made the right choice when she'd sworn to abandon them forever. But the real mistake was that she broke the vow, for such oaths don't like to be broken.

Indistinct radio chatter cut through Krystal's thoughts. Through a small viewport, Krystal made out a massive Cornerian battleship. The shuttle moved slowly in its direction, like a hurt child returning to an abusive parent, seeking a love that never came.

Falco busied himself studying the ceiling intently while Fox looked at the floor between his feet. The occupants of the shuttle remained silent, and the random slew of static and garbled voices from the radio provided a fitting background for their wordless exodus. The planet had offered them a home upon its surface for the longest week of Krystal's life, and now they all left it with unceremonious quietude, floating away in a rusty transport. She felt a faint melancholy at her departure from this unnamed world, and she caught an aura of the same feelings from Fox and Falco. She closed her mind, having no wish to listen to anything but the soft, harmonious discord of the radio traffic.

Through a viewport, Krystal watched as the shuttle was enveloped by one of the battleship's docking bays. She heard the engines whine as felt the floor plates rattle as the thing settled down on the grubby steel deck of the hangar bay. Dogfighters and other transport craft were lined up in neat rows against the walls, ready to come zooming out of the hangar bay and into battle at a moment's notice. Just who they would be firing at when they did so still remained unknown to Krystal. The expectation of learning the situation and what happened to the first battleship made itself prominent in Krystal's mind.

The thick rumble of the engines slowly died away, and, power being subsequently cut to all the shuttle's systems, the radio's gentle gurgling was abruptly silenced. Krystal got to her feet.

"Take me to see your captain," she ordered the leader as one of his men slid the door to the side.

"Yes, certainly. Follow me." He led her out of the shuttle and out across the empty deck, leaving Fox and Falco behind them without further adieu.

"Krystal," Fox's voice rang through the expansive chamber, stopping Krystal in her tracks. Turning to face him, Krystal caught his eye. "Get some answers. And be careful," a half-hearted smile brightened his countenance as he spoke. As Krystal pivoted back around and strode away, she smirked to herself. Perhaps Fox could be reasonable after all.

Once out of earshot, the man leading Krystal said without looking at her, "So you're the infamous Krystal…"

The grin vanished from her face as she snapped, "Shut up and walk." As if he hadn't already known who she was.


	27. Chapter 27

Krystal looked into eyes of the man sitting across the desk from her. Fathomless, black, and empty, they didn't make eye contact, but instead stared off at a large, polished falchion mounted on a steely bulkhead, one of many archaic and exotic weapons hanging from the walls. His face was cold, arching ridges marking out his indifference towards the world around him. The dim, flickering light from a single bulb on the ceiling glinted maliciously off his beady eyes.

"How did you do it? Bribery? Blackmail?" Krystal asked him bitterly. The shadows cast by the light overhead danced around her legs, set shoulder-width apart, as if ready to subdue this man if he were to make any unexpected move. When he finally turned to meet her gaze, he spoke in a dark, smooth, flat tone.

"If you hadn't fled the system like a foolish and ignorant schoolgirl, you would have been granted a similar prize."

"There's no way anyone in the Navy would ever trust you in a command position. Look at your track record!" Krystal's voice echoed in the largely empty room. Save for the polished steel desk and the weapons on the walls, the large ready-room was, for the most part, unfurnished.

"They needed heroes. Star Fox was washed up, and we were happy to take up their mantle," he replied, his icy voice piercing Krystal's head. She thought she'd never have to hear it grate against her ears again when she left for Kew.

"How many war crimes have you committed? How many innocent people have you killed? If you—"

"What about you, Krystal?" he interrupted, looking up at her from his seat with a stony expression. "How many war crimes have _you_ committed? Killed any righteous souls lately? Surely you don't think living as a career vigilante is an innocent pastime…"

Krystal didn't answer.

"You were there with us. Our stairway was built of the corpses of the innocent, and the landing fashioned of the shattered Anglar throne. Deny it all you like, but you are just as guilty as we are. You were one of us…"

Krystal still could think of nothing to say. She stood looking down at this sick excuse for a man below her, jaw clenched shut. "You don't deserve any of this," she spat.

"But that isn't how the world works, Krystal. You paid the price, by our side, but you forfeit the benefits we've all reaped. That was your choice, just as it was mine to accept the command of the _Providence, _which the Admiralty so kindly offered all of us. A shame you were already on Kew, shooting street rats for pocket change."

After a moment she asked tentatively, "All of you?"

"All of us. Caruso took the _Godsend, _and O'Donnell, whose mess I'm busy cleaning up at the moment, got the _Epiphany._"

She looked at the nameplate on the desk before her. The words _Leon Powalski_ looked back at her. She felt that to see this name etched into a gilded plate was a crime.

Krystal heard the door behind her burst open and saw Fox, her rufous animus, taking wide, angry strides through the steely bulkhead.

"You son of a bitch," Fox hissed, coming to a halt before Leon's desk, slamming his fists onto its heavily polished surface and staring down at Leon like a seething lion looking down at his kill. "Since when did you get your clammy fingers on a naval captaincy?" He said the last two words as if they were describing a particularly valuable work of art Leon had made off with. "Did you kill someone? Bribe someone? Tell me!"

Despite the fact that there was a murderous Fox directly in front of him him, Leon remained completely composed, flinching only when Fox's spittle splattered over his face.

"You missed the news? There was a ceremony, a few years back. Each of the members of Star Wolf, with much ado, were made captains of the Cornerian navy. But you were probably too drunk to realize it when it happened…" Leon trailed off, sizing Fox up skeptically.

Krystal concluded that Leon must've sold his soul for the uncanny ability to shut people up whenever he pleased, for Fox had no retort to this.

Leon carried on, after he'd let Fox wallow in silence for a few moments. "Thanks to you fools, Corneria is now at war."

Fox was standing ahead of Krystal, so she couldn't see his face, but she shut her eyes solemnly when she pictured Fox's expression as it must've appeared at hearing this.

Fox asked gravely, "With who?"

Leon leaned back in his chair, unlocking a cabinet on his right. "That's not important." He opened the cabinet.

And before Krystal could react, Leon had already fired his shot. She heard a dart cut the air, and saw the needle protruding from just above Fox's sternum. Before he'd hit the ground, Krystal already had her pistol drawn, aimed right between Leon's eyes.

That damn lizard didn't even flinch when he was looking down the muzzle of a weapon! But Krystal, in her heightened state of adrenaline-fuelled fury, had the trigger already halfway depressed when he began to speak again.

"Krystal, you may choose not to believe it, but I value peace." He tossed the air-powered dart gun onto his desk, with a sharp clanking noise that filled the room. As if on cue, half a dozen navymen had poured into the ready-room. Although Krystal didn't dare turn to face them, she was sure that they had weapons pointed the back of her head, just as hers was pointed at Leon's. Once the movement settled down, Leon cleared his throat, and the words again poured from his mouth like molten lead.

"When I was a younger, more naïve man, I though Andross would be the harbinger of peace in our world. Of course, I soon found I was gravely mistaken, but I persisted in my quest to find peace somewhere in our universe. In this sense, Wolf O'Donnell was something of a… mentor to me. From him, I learned a vast multitude about peace—mostly through his negative example. I followed him and his gang around the four systems, breaking laws, procuring many an ill-gotten gain. When the Anglar wars began, the rest of the team saw this as just another opportunity to strike it rich. You'd now better than anyone, being as close as you were to Panther…"

He let it sink into Krystal's mind before continuing. By this point, her finger had grown lax over her trigger, and her arms were trembling in her wildly swimming thoughts.

"I, though you may claim that I lie even I speak before you now, was not of a like-mind to these materialistic brutes. I finally saw before me, free for the taking, a providential godsend of an epiphany…" He giggled gaily at this. "I could redeem myself. The Anglar war was, for me, an opportunity to make reparation for past evils, all in the name of… peace. And peace we had, Krystal. Although you chose to flee your sad little problems and run off to the Kew system, drowned in your unfounded angst, the rest of us enjoyed three long years of prosperity.

"When we descended down upon Corneria, the world we had saved, they adored us as war heroes. Crowns of flowers were placed upon our heads as they marched us through the city, borne on the backs of grateful citizens. We were given captaincies in the Cornerian navy, and beyond that, nearly anything we wished came to us as if by magic. Caruso, of course, got over you in no time—I'm fairly sure I saw a different girl walk away from his bedchambers every morning since our return. O'Donnell became immersed in the culture of the other naval commanders, and it wasn't long before he began to fancy himself a man of honor. I was given what I'd always wanted—a peaceful world to live in.

"And that brings us to you. You left. Normally, I'd bear you no ill—to deny yourself paradise is no crime, however idiotic it proves you to be. What forces me to do what I'm about to is this: you brought it upon yourself to, after biding your time for three years, spoil the paradise for those of us who had the sense to savor it. We enter an extended period of peace for the first time in decades—and you, once again, bring war to our doorstep."

Krystal started, "This war isn't my—"

"I don't care what you have to say, so I recommend you make that the last time you interrupt me."

"Now, there was an attack on an interstellar space gate roughly one week ago, in orbit over Kew. Perhaps you're not aware of just how many treaties protect the public jumpgate network, but an attack on any one of them by any governmental entity is considered a direct act of war."

Krystal mulled the words over, the true nature of this war finally beginning to dawn on her.

"The Kew gate was subject to an armed attack by Kew law enforcement officials. You and your friends may have escaped through the malfunctioning gate to the relative safety of this godforsaken rock, but the rest of us were forced to sit back and watch as Corneria's navy sailed up to Kew's front door—and knocked. War was declared on both sides the next day."

Fox's unconscious form on the floor caught Krystal's eye. What had they done?

"Do you know just how much I sacrificed for this peace?"

Krystal was determined not to give him the pleasure of a response. However, she followed him with her eyes as his chair slid backwards. It turned around, and began to glide, as if floating on air around the desk, almost like it was on… wheels.

"I sacrificed a great…deal…" he growled maliciously as he turned to face Krystal.

Her trembling only increased in violence when she saw Leon… or what was left of him. His legs, both of them, were gone at the waist. The remaining half of his body was slouched in a wheelchair.

"In the weeks after our victory over the Anglar Emperor, it fell on Star Wolf's shoulders to aid the navy in mopping up the remaining Anglar militants. Of course, Star Wolf a member short by this time, as you well know. We were flying low over Venom's southern continent, when we were ambushed. My eject control fried to bits, I was forced to remain in the cockpit as I plummeted to the rocky face of the planet below. When they were finished extracting me form my plane, there was only half of me left."

Leon waved a finger, and one of the men behind Krystal shuffled forward, and she felt the cold metal of a rifle's barrel being pressed against the back of her skull.

"I'm not going to fill you in on the rest of my plans just yet, however. We've got plenty of time ahead of us for that. Now, if you'd kindly drop your weapon, my men will escort you to your cell."

Krystal shut her eyes as her pistol slipped from her limp fingers and clattered to the floor below.


	28. Chapter 28

As Krystal awaited her fate locked fast her cell, her dreams, unlike the thin, diluted atmosphere through which the _Providence_ sailed in its ceaseless orbit of the unnamed planet, were turbulent, each resting at an uneasy medium between soberly silencing and unsettlingly disturbing. They were filled with fiery incarnations of fallen dead, blindingly sharp blades crying for loose blood, and the vile reek of spent sulfur. The violence upset Krystal's stomach, and when the time came that she could no longer bear to sleep, she found that guilt played just as large a role in the abdominal stabs as did the phantasmal apparitions that danced about her broken mind, each mockingly depicting another hideous and unspeakable aspect of raw war, unadorned, naked.

What had she brought on this already war-weary world but more of the same?

But she refused to let this take control of her. She shed no tears, displayed no pain. Where another, lesser soul might cower in a corner, begging for relief and attention, Krystal would keep her composure in a seamless act, preferring to let her soul wither away into oblivion than let others see weakness. The only individual who ever got to witness this now-rare phenomenon was Fox McCloud.

The trouble in this case, however, was that the ass hadn't shown his face to Krystal since she'd woken up, bruises and all, in her cramped cell. The only company she'd had to keep was the guard's, who sat at a little metal table on a little metal chair across from Krystal's little metal cage in the _Providence_'slittle metal brig. No one, not even Leon himself, had taken a moment out of his or her busy schedules to say a word to Krystal.

She had spent one night and nearly two days in her prison—at least, as far as her internal clock could reckon. The cell, which seemed to shrink with every moment Krystal spent locked behind its thick, trussed walls, was only scantily furnished. One narrow bed, made of polished steel, with no blankets to soften the razor-sharp edges, was welded to one corner (in case she should attempt to roll over in her tumultuous sleep and impale herself, Krystal had slept on the riveted floor). There was one toilet, again, crafted of heavily polished steel, strategically placed directly opposite a large door-sized window pane, on the other side of which sat the guard, waiting patiently for what he clearly expected to be the show of a lifetime. Needless to say, Krystal hadn't used the toilet once since her arrival, and she had no intention of doing so as long as the uneducated-looking guard on the other side sat staring at her like a drunk stares at a stripper who hasn't yet begun the unholy rite he's expecting her to perform.

Another thing to add to the list of things Krystal would never show the guard—her weakness, her pain, and her ass. Krystal cracked a satisfied grin at the thought of disappointing the halfwit sitting at his little metal table.

But the dull pleasure brought to her by these trivial victories didn't hold up when her thoughts turned to things she'd seen when she'd last slept. She'd been out on the floor for just an hour or two before she clambered to her knees, fur matted with sweat, retching into her pathetic toilet. The things she saw, the cries she heard, the rot she smelled, the blood she… tasted—it was too much for her empty stomach to keep down. Her body simply couldn't process that much war in such a concentrated dose. As she let it all slop out into the shining bowl, the words echoed in her skull, as if she were saying them and listening to the vibrations play about her skeleton as her vocal chords carved the words from the breath she drew:

_"Redemption lies below... abandon the soil beneath you and you resign your world to the lamentable loss of the conflict you see before you now… Redemption lies below…"_

Whenever the words played in her mind, the images she'd seen in her dreams recalled themselves, etched as they were into her memory. And a face, with gleaming golden eyes...

Just as she was beginning to succumb to sleep for the second time in two days, Krystal was jarred from her half-sleep as if by an earthquake. The metal below her rattled as if shaken by an unseen hand. Krystal immediately recognized the symptoms and diagnosed the problem as she got to her feet—the _Providence_ was under direct attack by another battleship. This was confirmed when Krystal saw the red light spinning, the klaxons blaring, and the men screaming.

As a second and third wave shook the deck, she made fleeting eye contact with her guard. Looking him in the eye through her window, she silently goaded him, cockily daring him to leave his post and learn what was going on elsewhere. He teetered on the brink of staying put or leaving for a moment, but was convinced when a fourth wave, resounding like a gong, made the bulkheads quiver. He ran out of the empty brig, leaving Krystal alone to face the challenge of breaking out of her cell from the inside.

But the sweat again darkened her forehead as she worked at the locking mechanism. The door to her cell was expertly built, being nearly impossible to trip from inside the room. Krystal had managed to pry away the panel concealing the handle's gears and fail-safes, but found that they were of a far higher grade than any she'd ever broken through while bounty hunting on Kew. A fifth wave rocked the ship while she worked, and the thought crossed her mind of being locked in this infinitesimally small cell as the vessel was destroyed, taking her with it like a pet, locked away in a kennel during a house fire.

The sixth wave brought shudders to the walls around Krystal, and tears to her desperate, golden eyes as she pried at the lock with trembling fingers. She was to die here, unable to escape before the battleship was torn apart by the devilish prongs of opposing weapons-fire. She was to burn in this claustrophobic cell which began to close down around Krystal, strangling the life from her as she vainly clawed at the door which panicked her so…

But the seventh wave brought salvation. Fox McCloud burst through the brig door, wielding a rifle half his size. Krystal banged on her window, weeping with relief at such a welcome sight. Meeting her eyes, he took aim with his weapon, and Krystal, looking down its barrel, watched as Fox pulled his trigger.

And the lock that held Krystal burst into a million little pieces, falling like raindrops as the inner workings of the most complicated deadbolt money could buy was decimated by the force of Fox's courageous gunshot.

For a just an instant, Fox hesitated. There he stood, standing in the brig's doorway across the room from Krystal, smoking rifle held aloft, illuminated from behind by the all the fires of hell and all the glories of heaven, having, for the second time, saved the life of his love. The galaxy's greatest artists could paint the image a dozen times each and never capture the brilliant explosion of love Krystal saw before her, standing in that doorway, framed there forever as the most beautiful thing Krystal would ever see in her entire lifetime. If she'd had the time, she'd have cried for its magnificence.

But an eighth wave passed over her, bringing to bear the realities of this world. This perfection she saw before her was something she knew she would forego. The fires behind Fox, which threatened to consume him, were beyond the simplicity of romance. Krystal had been shown the opportunity, and she knew that she had to take it.

This war had to end.

As Krystal made her decision, Fox wrenched open her cell door, letting in all the sound and fury of a warring battleship, opening a box that never again would be closed on Krystal. Over the commotion, Fox's voice spoke softly.

"Come. We can escape."

Krystal nodded, already heavy-headed with regret for an act she hadn't even committed yet.

Walking briskly through the hallways, moving aside for the occasional officer sprinting to or fro, taking a detour around a treacherous gas-fire, which had already claimed one man's life. As they turned away to take a different hallway, Krystal saw the boy's blackened face, smelled its stench, and heard the hisses and pops issuing from the cracked skull. Unable to turn her head as she and Fox hurried down a different corridor, she either saw the dead boy look up at her and reach out in pleading, or she was becoming delirious from a chemical leak.

"This is all our fault, Fox," Krystal told him as they waited for a damaged door to creep open for them. "We caused this."

He looked down at her, and, for just a moment, she realized just how much taller than Krystal Fox was. He replied, "Leon told me the same thing. But I don't believe it."

"What's not to believe, Fox?" Krystal asked him, voice breaking. "We were in a firefight, and we didn't even have the sense to stay away from—"

"Those weren't law enforcement vehicles, Krystal. We have no idea who was tailing us." He pried at the jammed door with his free hand. "Leon's just an overly logical man who can't sleep at night until he's invented himself a rock-steady explanation for a mystery he can't solve." The door wasn't moving. "This war is out of our hands." He dropped the rifle, and bodily tugged on the door, still to no avail.

Krystal leaned forward, threw open the door single-handedly, and turned to look Fox in the eye. "No. It's not."

A ninth wave overcame the floor beneath them.

Beyond the door Krystal had opened lay the aft launch bay. Dozens of pilots were running across the deck, passing Krystal and Fox on all sides, climbing into fighters, and soaring away through the wide expanse of hull that was opened to let these damned souls rush into their fate—a portal directly to hell. In this case, hell was an opposing battleship, some miles away, raining fire upon the _Providence_. In the foreground, hundreds of dueling dog-fighters engaged in the most frantic, random dance of death Krystal had ever witnessed. In the background, a wide landscape of mountains and trees provided a lush backdrop for the battle.

"The ship that won that skirmish earlier… it looks like it's finally caught up to us," Fox muttered.

"The orbits had to align eventually," Krystal said quietly, surveying the massive room for a suitable getaway vehicle.

"That one," Fox said, pointing at a larger drop-ship, the same model as the one they were brought on board with. It sat right on the edge of the open bay door, overlooking the battle, poised and ready to slip away into a sunset.

"Has it got an on-board FTL drive?" Krystal asked hesitantly.

"Yes," Fox said, starting for the craft. "We'll plot a course straight for Corneria, and form there—"

Krystal took hold of his arm as the tenth wave resounded through the air. "You're not coming with me, Fox."

Fox turned, clearly too confused to say anything.

"I have to go back to the planet. Alone."

"No… Krystal, you can't do that, we've got to—"

"Listen, I've been having dreams again. There's something I've forgotten, something I've missed down on the surface."

"I'll go with you. We'll find it together!" Fox said hopefully.

"Fox, Corneria needs you. It needs a hero."

"No, I can't—"

"Fox," Krystal spoke slowly, grinning encouragingly through the tears that leaked one by one from her eyes. "Go back home. Reassemble Star Fox. Win this war." She hugged him as tightly as she could.

"No. No, Krystal, you can't do this. I can come with you. I _have_ to come with you—" he blurted desperately.

She let go of him, and glanced into his terror-stricken eyes. She wasn't prepared for this. Turning away and cradling her own head in her hand, she felt an eleventh wave pass through her. She reached out for the spacecraft's open hatch for support.

"Krystal, we were never supposed to be separated again. We were supposed to live out the rest of our days together in love and adventure! Krystal!"

Head still in hand, she stepped into the vehicle, and made her way to the pilot's seat. She looked back at Fox once more, in hopes of quelling her own fears and doubts. The deck below him quivered with dread.

"This is my own battle. Now go and fight yours."

Fox looked up, mortified, mouth hanging limp. He only asked brokenly. "Will you come back?"

And Krystal wanted so badly to promise him that she would, to quote him an exact time and place, that she might be forced by her word to see her love again. But she did not know what would come of her excursion. She only knew what catastrophic things would transpire if she refused to give Fox up, at least for a time.

"I don't know," she said, now openly weeping, choking on her tears.

And as twelve struck, a door closed between Fox and Krystal. The ship bearing Fox's love rose up like an angel and drifted away as his knees collapsed onto the steel deck, his wails echoed tenfold in the now empty hangar bay. All so quickly—in an instant!—the universe as he knew it broke down into nothing. Everything he thought he'd built up was torn asunder, and every little happiness he'd thought he could rely on was being blown away, like so many leaves in a chill, unfeeling gust of early winter's wind.

And Krystal, flying so fleetly away from her heart's greatest desire, pined that someone could tell her why she was leaving Fox on such a insignificant whim. Why did she not turn right back, and sweep him off his feet…?

An ethereal voice whispered softly in her ear, "There are things more important, causes more dire. And although it pains you now, you know that this has to be done. You know that you're the one that will do it."

"What am I even doing?" Krystal sobbed to the empty compartment.

"The right thing," the voice replied.


	29. Chapter 29

Fox found himself more alone in that hangar than he had been during long freight trips. He'd found more company in that stuffy cockpit than he could rely on here. The windowless cabin that had been his home for months at a time had been so safe and warm, and there could never have been a place more suitable for Fox to retreat to and lick his wounds, never a place that proved such a tremendous jar he could seal himself away into to regress, to ferment, and to stew in his thoughts. It had been so comfortable, and it had fooled Fox for three years into thinking that hiding would solve his problems.

He'd found solace there, and it was that solace that poisoned his mind. The solace had materialized itself, personified itself, and whispered sweetly into Fox's ear that it was a bona fide individual. And if he was constantly in the presence of another individual, there was no way he could be alone. Those years locked away, hiding behind his wall, had served no purpose but to persuade Fox that he was not lonely. It had been such a hypnotic time, day in and day out, thinking so falsely that he was somehow not alone. And then, in a bar, over a drink, he'd been torn from it, shaken, and given a choice. Still numb from his prolonged leave of absence from reality, he agreed to emerge.

But he'd only agreed because Krystal had been there, offering an outstretched arm. She'd been there, always right there beside him. He had only to look into her eyes, and he would _know_ that he was no longer lonely, and he would know that it wasn't a lie anymore. And every time he saw her face he would heal, bit by bit, just by the working of Krystal's mere presence. She was responsible for so much of Fox's rehabilitation that Fox was almost feeling like his old self again. Even when the world began to explode around them and the gods themselves stood in their way he felt secure, truly at home, as long as he knew Krystal would still be caring for him. As long as he knew she'd be by his side, he knew nothing could ever hurt them.

And here he was, adrift in the seas of the universe without a guide. There were no sincere, loving eyes to look to for comfort, no confident hands to hold in his own; he felt naked and lost without these things.

He stood a few feet away from the gaping edge of the open hangar, propped up against the open bay doors, alone in the room with his confusion. The room was so expansively large, and Fox was so small standing there on the deck, the setting sun before him casting a long, twisted shadow behind him. The battle in the distance was beginning to subside, although Fox couldn't tell which side was winning—there were far fewer fighters in total than there were when they'd started the fighting. They looked so much like a swarm of flies blotting out the sun as they did, zipping to and fro about the horizon, the occasional flash of light indicating blandly to Fox that another plane had fallen, and that another pilot's life had ended.

Fox turned away from the grim light show, unsure that he could take much more. It was all more than Fox's weak heart could bear, looking out that massive portal, through which half his soul just flew, through which he could see the setting sun glint off wing pylons and g-diffusers, through which he bore witness to what would likely turn out to be a historic moment for civilization—or it could just be another footnote in the long list of wars Corneria had been involved in. To Fox, it was neither. It was, quite simply, just a sick hallucination he was no longer interested in beholding.

Fox felt the weight of the world on his back as he turned it coldly to the sunset and let wash over his shoulders the whole of the day he was damned by fate to rue.

As he let his feet mechanically carry him out of the cargo bay and into the halls, he realized that the tremors had stopped. Clearly the fighters were doing their job, drawing fire off the battleship's hull. Even so, fires burned and chemicals leaked through walls and ceilings whose metal masks had been torn away, and nary a few bodies were strewn around the deep corners and the dark places of the corridors. Next to one marred, faceless husk of a corpse, Fox saw Krystal's pistol. He bent to pick it up, trying to keep from letting the smell get into his nose as he retrieved the weapon.

It was caked in grime, and the steel of its old fashioned barrel had been blackened by flame. He'd forgotten how beautiful the weapon was, and he saw now, even through the filth, the charm the old lead-slinger held. He held up his own weapon, which Leon's men had given back to him when he'd woken up a few hours earlier, and compared the two. It was smaller, and surely wouldn't pack any such punch as Krystal's strong-arm could deliver. The two guns, despite the fact that one spit coagulated matter-streams and the other belched bullets, looked surprisingly similar when he held them up side-by-side. He holstered Krystal's weapon, leaving his own stuffed in a pocket.

When he started walking through the halls again, Fox discovered that he had a destination in mind now. His stride became quicker, more determined, and his narrowed eyes, instead of scanning the torn leavings on the wayside, were fixed ahead.


	30. Chapter 30

The first thing Fox saw as he rounded the corner leading to sick bay was a pallid, sickly-looking face resting about two feet below his own. Captain Powalski was looking quite anxious, and had he not been sitting helplessly in his wheelchair, he may have even looked dangerous. Noticing Fox, who'd almost walked right into the protruding stumps below the man's knees, Leon started.

"McCloud, I was hoping I'd see you," he said, and Fox heard the exhaustion in his voice. "I wanted to explain—"

"I don't want to talk to you now," Fox said curtly, looking over Leon's head again and making to sidestep the chair. Unfortunately, the chair swung around to block his path. He was surprisingly agile with that thing…

"No, it's very important that I speak with you," he asserted. "This is critical to our victory in this—"

But Fox interrupted again, now very irritated. He had realized that there was still at least one person left, and now Leon was standing (sitting) between Fox and that person.

"What do you want from me, damn it? Unless I'm mistaken, you shot me with a dart gun. And then I wake up in an empty room, after who knows how long, to this damned ship rattling around like a lizard getting throttled!"

"I'm fully aware of the situation we're in, Fox. And I apologize that I wasn't able to explain things to you sooner, but I had little choice. Had I not shot you in that office, you would have shot _me_."

Fox knew he was right on that point. But it wasn't the only point he had—Fox _had_ woken up in a comfortable bed with his gun on the bedside table, and _had_ found his door unlocked. He then proceeded to, in all the chaos, get his hands on the biggest gun he could find, and start threatening guards in the hallways to divulge Krystal's whereabouts. At the time, the thought that Krystal may already lay dead in some dark corner was keeping him at the end of his nerves. After all that had transpired in the short period since then, Fox wasn't sure he would ever _leave_ the end of his nerves.

"I didn't foresee your daring rescue, but at the time, I felt that capturing Krystal was the wisest course of action.

"But our business does not concern the past—I need your help here in the present," Leon reasoned.

"Spit it out," Fox said, feeling the urge to see his brother growing more and more urgent with every word that dribbled off of Leon's slimy tongue.

"Will you fly out into the battle?"

"What?"

"The ship is lost. I managed to get the inertial dampening fields back online, but the engines won't last very long. Our only chance now is to evacuate whoever we can, jettison the sick bay section, and do everything we can to aid the fighter pilots who even now are warring bravely with the enemy planes. We have to win the air war, Fox, even though we are on the verge of humiliating defeat. That can only be averted if you lead the charge."

Fox thought about it. He thought about many things. In his mind, Peppy Hare voiced his advice, and James McCloud gave rebuttal. Even Wolf O'Donnell threw in his sparse two bits, and General Pepper issued some lame order from the sidelines. Their souls did nothing but stir up a great argument within him—was this war worth it? Was Corneria worth saving? Would winning this battle save it?

Would anything save it?

Krystal's words spoke up over all the rest.

_"Corneria needs you. It needs a hero."_

But he'd always been a hero, always been one of a _troupe_ of heroes. He'd gallivanted around the galaxy, fighting off "evil," brining hopeless wars to their "victories," and done it all with, ever by his side, his "friends." They were there, every time. In every photograph, every film, and even every memory, Fox had never been alone. Even when his father had passed on, Falco had been there. Peppy took up the mantle of "father," Fox supposed, and Slippy was never gone when anyone needed him. And then, as if life wasn't perfect enough, Krystal happened.

It was all too much. Fox ran a hand across his pate staring, squinting at the floor. There, reflected in the polished steel, was all the perfection his past had to offer. So much was going for him, and he knew there was nothing he could have ever asked for to improve even one aspect of it. Where did he go wrong? What was his first mistake?

Fox thought hard on this too, but the answer soon made itself apparent: he had been too perfect. When it was all right there, laid out for him, he never knew that it was even possible to imbibe too heavily of perfection. And yet, somehow, Fox had managed it. The past few years had offered the fruits of his decline—everyone had all left. One by one, they just walked out the swinging double doors of Fox's perfect life. Falco left in an Arwing. Slippy left in the arms of a lover. Peppy left in a hearse. And now Krystal had done the same thing. She was the last one, and now she was gone. What was there left to gain in life anymore?

What was there left to lose?

"I'll fly," he told Leon quietly.


	31. Chapter 31

Before he did anything else, even before Leon could respond, Fox pushed past him, making his way quite determinedly towards the sickbay doors. They were black, handle-less things, separated from the walls around them by about and inch of empty space, like an oversized gateway to a sleazy saloon. Directly in front of the doorway, embedded in the walls, were two massive bulkheads waiting to slam shut if the sickbay section were to jettison with the onboard evacuation vessels. But until those immovable walls were in place, the flimsy black doors would willingly stand aside to allow Fox passage into the sickbay beyond them. He pushed them in and stepped into the thick, barely breathable air that always lingers in hospital hallways the way death lingers in a morgue. But this air was also flavored with the odors of blackened flesh and drying blood, and on the air's flow he could vaguely catch the moanings and cries for relief coming from the mouths of dozens upon dozens of men.

The sickbay quickly proved to be one of the biggest messes Fox had ever beheld. A few medical attendants rushed about frantically across the red-spattered floor to care as best they could for the many critically injured patients lying anywhere that wasn't slready occupied by another body—on beds, in chairs, or just on the bloodied steel below them. Many of them were sporting badly burned limbs, if they even had all of them. Some were impaled on twisted metal, some had been crushed by some heavy object or other, and some yet looked maimed enough to have been torn apart by wild animals. Or, worse yet, torn apart by their fellow man.

But Fox didn't stop at any of these tables, didn't bother giving any of them the drugs that could potentially save their lives, didn't care to comfort one of the men who'd had his face burned off in a plasma fire, and certainly didn't stop to close the eyelids on any of the already deceased (again, given that they still had eyelids… or eyes). The gore elicited no response from Fox, whose own eyes never strayed from the one table that did not bear a mortally wounded man.

Falco lay on his bed in the far corner of the surprisingly spacious room, and he was, by some miracle, sleeping. His pants leg had long been torn off, and there were relatively fresh bandages over what was previously a seriously infected stabhole. Other than that, he seemed almost uncannily unharmed, and this brought in quite the stark contrast between him and every other patient in the room. But Fox didn't notice this.

"Falco," Fox muttered when he arrived at Falco's bedside, looking down at his friend, wingmate, brother. "I know you aren't sleeping."

"I… can't watch," he said, probably in reference to the man in the bed across from him, whose bottom half had been burned to the point where his legs became stumps, his skin had boiled away, and his uniform had fused with the exposed muscle. Alternatively, he may have been referring to the man on his left, who didn't even have a bottom half. And, as if to justify all of these poor unfortunates' presence here in sickbay, Falco added, "There was some sort of explosion in the port engine room."

Fox remained stone-faced.

"Leon's going to jettison the sickbay and the rest of the OEVs. The situation doesn't hold much promise as far as victory goes, but I'm getting you out of here anyway."

"I'm not going anywhere. I don't even want to move." Falco seemed to be very adamant about not moving about, as if he were denying his surroundings. In fact, he still hadn't opened his eyes.

"You can stay here if you like. You'll die with the rest when this whole section of the ship breaks off and is targeted by the enemy frigate as mere cannon-fodder. Or you could come down to the hangar bay with me, just to say we tried."

"You think I feel like flying? With my leg the way it is and… everything…" Falco muttered lamely.

"You don't need either of those to fly anything. In fact, even that fellow there," Fox motioned to the man who'd lost everything below his waist, "could easily fly away in a dogfighter. If he were conscious…"

"What the hell's gotten into you, anyway?" Falco asked, furrowing his brows, which struck Fox as strange, seeing as his eyes were still shut tight. "You're acting like some kind of… stoic hawk."

"Are you coming or not?"

"I don't even know why you… I don't think I'm capable of even…" Falco started looking for words he just couldn't find, while Fox decided he'd found his answer.

"Fine," he spoke with resignation, and turned to begin his stroll back to the black double door.

And he walked. All the excruciating and unbearable pain being felt by everyone in the room bounced off Fox as if he had some sort shield around him to protect him from all of it. The world passed him by as he quietly took leave from this black room, and he heard the doors swing shut behind him.

Looking ahead, he saw that Leon had also left. To where, Fox neither knew nor cared to know. And even as he took the first step off in the direction of the hangar bay, he heard klaxons go off behind him, and saw swirling red light dance across the floor before his feet. The rush of air into an airlock soon overpowered the klaxons' wailings, and then, with a whip, a snap, and an innumerable multitude of echoes resounding through the empty halls and corridors, Fox heard the airlock doors seal. And, while Fox had stopped to listen without turning, he heard a dull rushing noise against the wall, and he identified this as the sickbay section firing its engines to escape the dying mothership, just as Leon had said it would eventually.

But Fox also heard something else: Falco's heavy breathing.

"What made you get up?" Fox asked, still without turning.

"When I finally opened my eyes to look you in yours, all I saw was your retreating back. I couldn't take that lying down." Falco's voice reverberated after he spoke, putting eerie emphasis on the last word.

Fox nodded, more to himself than to Falco, who he couldn't even bring himself to face. Perhaps it was just that he was too afraid to look Falco in the eye, since Fox had rewarded Falco's attempt to do the same with a turned back. Or perhaps it was that Fox didn't want Falco to see the tears welling up in his own eyes. Either way, the end result remained unchanged: Falco, here at this pivotal moment, never got to look Fox in the eye. Not once.


	32. Chapter 32

The double doors leading from the main corridors into the hangar bay were still defunct. One lay half-open, crooked in its place, wisps of steam rising from the mechanisms designed to pull it aside for those seeking entrance to the _Providence's_ cache of fighters and transports. The other door lay on the steel floor nearby, blacked and bent. Fox stepped gingerly over their remains and into the bay.

"Cloudrunners?" Falco said from behind Fox, where he was limping along. He spoke incredulously, almost mockingly. "Since when did they stock Cornerian cruisers with those pieces of shit?"

Fox didn't feel that he was obligated to respond. Cloudrunners were only a few years old, and they weren't bad ships at all. After all, they were the first line of spaceplane that had a G-diffuser system specifically designed with combat maneuvers in mind, and as far as Fox knew they were still the only ones that did. Of course, they never did had the same agility that Arwings had, but Arwings cost about twenty or thirty times as much as a Cloudrunner ever would, and were never meant to be purchased in bulk.

As Fox walked (despite the urgency of the situation, Fox wouldn't have been able to say why he insisted on walking) towards the line of remaining fighters, he saw that each bore a pristine layer of blue and gray paint. The torpedo tubes showed no sign of any ashen stains left by rocket-propellant. And there were certainly no battle scars on any of them. While a good scrubbing and a generous helping of knowledgable maintenance could wipe the grime off a well-used spacefighter, nothing could make one look like new again. These planes _were_ new.

"Falco," Fox asked over his shoulder, "Do you have any idea of when the navy bought all these Cloudrunners?"

"They restocked the whole fleet with a new batch just after the Anglar war ended. It was Peppy's last action as General."

So _that_ was what had happened. After Peppy was gone, whoever replaced him clearly didn't feel like their new planes should ever be flown. He knew for a fact that Peppy would have had at least one wing in the air at all times, more if he thought the men flying them needed any extra practice. But these planes had gone soft from lack of exercise. And if the planes were soft, Fox shuddered to think of how soft the pilots had grown. He knew for fact that many of the pilots during the Anglar conflict had been veterans from the second wave of Venomian Wars. He also knew for fact that most of them had retired during the relative prosperity following Star Wolf's spectacular defeat of the Anglar Emperor deep beneath Venom's volatile seas. This meant that most, if not all the pilots were new recruits, who, judging from the untouched, even dusty state of the fighters they flew, had had very little experience. This was the crime of a leader who took no stock in his pilots. By running a loose, lazy ship that promoted this atrocious flying regimen, Leon Powalski had all but guaranteed the deaths of every last one of his men when he sent them out to fight in a battle for which they were all so abysmally unprepared.

Fox's blood boiled and seethed through his veins, forcing their way through valves and ventricles alike, driven to this righteous fury at the thought of strangulating one filthy green lizard the next time Fox saw him.

Fox was interrupted when Falco, who'd worked his way ahead of him, reached the first Cloudrunner that was in a launch position.

"I haven't flown a fighter in months. This'll be refreshing," Falco said, releasing the glass dome on one of the Cloudrunners and ducking into the pilot's seat.

"Not years? What fighters have you been flying all this time?" Fox asked, climbing into the next plane down the line. He knew _he_ hadn't flown a fighter in years. If Falco had been flying something, keeping his own reflexes sharp and his skills well oiled, they had twice the chance any of the _Providence_ pilots had.

"I had the Sky Claw for a while, but that was confiscated pretty quick," Falco was cut off when his glass dome met its seal and sucked shut. He continued his conversation over the radio, after Fox and Falco both tuned, out of habit, to the frequency they'd always used as the Star Fox communication channel. "After that I flew some ships out of Lylat jurisdiction, mostly on Kew," his voice rang in Fox's earpiece. "No laws to speak of there, you know."

"Yeah…" Fox replied. He had no trouble imagining Falco joyriding over the barren, trash-filled plains of Kew. Perhaps he cruised over the sea of brothels and beer-houses, oblivious to the crimes being committed below him. Or maybe he flew circles around the carcass of the old Great Fox, sticking up at such an unnatural angle, as it had been in the scrapyard here he and Krystal had properly reintroduced themselves… and where he'd met Kursed for the first time. It all seemed so far in the past now.

Fox warmed up his gravity drives, and activated his G-diffusion interface. He slid his right hand into the steering console, and waited while the thick foam inside it expanded slowly, like a blood-pressure cuff, until it fit every crevice and niche like a glove. Feeling the cool, spongy material close around his fingers felt so inexpressibly good to him, as if his hand had thirsted for this familiar experience for centuries, but had never quite gotten around to quenching that thirst. With his remaining hand, he calibrated the navigations computers, toggled his targeting systems, and primed his weapons, all in one action that was both practiced and experienced, even if it hadn't been exercised in a while. As good as all this was, and as many memories as it brought back up to the surface, he still didn't want to fly out of the wide open bay doors, didn't want to join the fray of a battle his side was likely losing (or, more likely, that his side had already lost), and more than the rest, didn't want to have to leave the _Providence_, where he knew he could have kept a vigil, awaiting patiently upon Krystal's return.

"This is it," Falco's voice buzzed into Fox's headset. "Star Fox, this is Falco." He was speaking in his heavy, General Pepper impersonation. "You're to move out and into the fight on my mark! And make sure you give them what—"

But Falco was cut off by a heavy crash, audible even through their thick, glass cradles. It was a heavy impact, and it had set the docks to which their Cloudrunners were tethered to rattling. They both disconnected their craft and eased out into the open area of the hangar.

"What was that all about," Falco asked, looking over at Fox from his position to the right of and a bit below Fox's ship.

"I don't believe the battle is as far away as it was fifteen minutes ago," Fox replied, and he began to inch out through the hangar doors so he could get a radar reading. "Yeah, the enemy battleship is on the other side of the _Providence_, 6 o'clock. Stay close to me, and keep your weapons unlocked."

And with that, Fox burst out of the hangar bay, Falco on his heels, and they both wheeled around the top of the titanic battleship, which was now in an exceedingly low orbit. Once they crested the steel hulk of _Providence's_ hull, they saw that its counterpart from Kew was lurking just a mile or two away.

"We're in luck, Fox. There are only a few enemy planes left!"

This was true, but this good fortune was in no way a lovechild of luck's. It had been paid for dearly: while there were very few remaining signatures that bore Kew's radio identifier, there were no remaining Cornerian markers. All gone, and made so by Powalski's cancerous leadership habits.

"At least our OEVs made it out safely," Fox replied, seeing an FTL imprint for each corresponding vessel that had ejected from the _Providence_, carrying away many Cornerian souls whose lives would have been lost otherwise.

"Yeah… incoming, by the way" Falco warned mildly, as if he announced incoming hostiles on a daily basis.

Fox felt his pulse fly off the charts as the hostiles came into view. It was that feeling which hooked him from the very first day. It was that passion, that addiction, which kept him and all of Star Fox doing what they always did. Fox took a deep breath, and let it all wash over his body. His nerve endings lit up with electrifying power, and the world around him sped up, and he was exhilarated by the knowledge that he could keep up with it. The invincibility that filled him up to overflowing was what he lived for. He'd forgotten that, clearly, because he'd just spent three years without experiencing anything like this. But now here he was, and here the adrenaline was, and here he knew he belonged. Fox left the world around him, along with everything he ever feared or loved, far behind him.

He and Falco flew their ships in frenzied twirls and swoops, making them impossible targets for the incoming fighters, whose pilots must already be startled by what they saw. _We're nothing like those poor Cornerian pilots the lot of you made such quick work of_, Fox thought. _We're the angels of death._

And death was certainly what they brought forth onto the line of enemy planes when they began to fire. On the very first volley Fox counted five, although Falco would later claim that they'd taken out as many as a dozen on that first pass. Either way, Fox and Falco streaked overhead, leaving between themselves and their adversaries a fiery cloud of debris, which gloriously lit up the black sky all around them as they pulled around for yet another deadly pass.

Fox gritted his teeth in a twisted, almost smiling grimace. He became dully aware that he was salivating profusely. Nonetheless, his dexterous left hand worked with deft speed across his control panel while his right operated the steering console with the most perfect and precise of minute adjustments that sent his craft swinging in a tight arc that would have made a boomerang jealous.

Despite the stark differences in its handling abilities and in the layout of its controls, he'd forgotten completely that what he was flying wasn't an Arwing. Any definition the world had had before was gone now, leaving only his heightened senses and the scattering planes before him, which he now sped towards with greedy haste.

Falco was ahead of him and was already firing when Fox bore off in the other direction to chase down three or four fighters that were trying to make their way back to their mothership. Needless to say, none of them did.

And as Fox pulled about once again, he saw that Falco had already blown through half the targets he was dealing with.

"Fire in the hole!" Fox bellowed into his radio, and as Falco quickly veered away, Fox slammed his palm on a wide button near the top of his panel. He sucked in a deep breath as he watched the torpedo, held it in as the projectile curved through its elegantly twisting trajectory, and let it all out with an almost orgasmic pleasure when the rocket's smoky trail finally culminated in a huge, concussive blast. When the smoke dispersed, there was nothing left but large chunks of spacefighter, drifting globules of liquid fuel, and what looked mysteriously like torn pieces of bloodied bodies.

None left. No Kew signatures showed their light on Fox's radar screen. He quickly found that the raw chemical energy that had fuelled his short power trip was fading. He panted heavily, and heard Falco doing likewise into his headset. They looked at each other across the gulf between them, and made brief eye contact, but neither could think of anything to say for nearly a minute.

"We probably ought to… head back to the _Providence_…" Fox finally said to break the awkward silence in which their Cloudrunners were floating.

"Yeah…" Falco replied, sounding just as tired as Fox did. "Hold on, where is it?"

"What?"

"The _Providence_? Where the hell did it go?"

Fox quickly panned his radar to see what Falco meant. "Damnit," he muttered, when he didn't see any sign of it anywhere around them. When he panned it downwards, towards the planet's surface…

"Falco, down! Look down!"

And they both did. There it was, the unmistakable form of the great battleship _Providence_, trailing down steeply towards the planet below. It was reentering far too rapidly, and the flames that soon engulfed it and hid it from view followed the ship all the way through its fall, until it made brutal, explosive contact with the side of a towering mountain, leaving bright white imprints on the back of Fox and Falco's retinas.

The _Providence_ had joined its sister, the _Epiphany_, in eternal slumber upon the face of that strange planet. And just how strange it would prove to be escaped them all.


	33. Chapter 33

Krystal flew her craft low over the jagged treeline, like a mite of dust over a sprawling green carpet. As the gravity drive that held the ship aloft cut through the air the way a ship's bow cuts through waves, the gentle wake trailing out behind it rippled through the leaves below, stirring verdure that hadn't been disturbed in uncounted millennia. This blanket of trees spread out in all directions to the horizons, which seemed to grow more distant with each passing moment. The landscape below seemed flat and infinite, as if the little dropship that carried Krystal could fly in any direction it pleased for as long as it pleased and still never come to any change of vista.

The suns had disappeared completely now, but the sky around them still remembered their dusky glow, and the thick, hoary clouds, soaking up as much of the waning sunlight as they could, sang soft eulogies of the suns' now departed glory to the shadowy mountains below. It was a beautiful sonata, with polyphonic strains of murky indigo and ochre, a timbre that brought to mind the sharp sweetness of a strange and exotic fruit, and a chilling refrain that spoke remorsefully of midsummers past. Krystal had never beheld a sunset like this one since her Cerinian childhood, but she averted her eyes when she caught them gluttonously partaking of this visual feast. She couldn't bear to see something so magnificent and be without someone with whom she could share the sight.

Krystal had been flying for at least half an hour, and the complete silence in the cabin of the shuttle was evoking a dull sense of claustrophobia somewhere in her stomach. Her tears had dried by now, but the sense that she should continue to fly in the direction in which she was called remained at the forefront of her mind. It was as if some invisible hook had latched onto her and pulled, hard, in the direction in which she was now flying. It wasn't that she had any idea where she was going (she didn't); it was that she knew that she had to go there.

Before long, the craft banked sharply to the left, and the engines whined as they fought centripetal action. It's pilot wouldn't have been able to explain why she broke off from her path when she did. Up ahead, beyond where the trees thinned out, lay a wide, sandy shoreline. The water's face was unmarred by wind, bearing only the visage of setting sunlight upon its otherwise inky surface.

The shuttle came to a slow, vertical descent over the beach, sand billowing out around the sinking ship as its g-diffusers brought it to a perfectly graceful halt a foot or so off the ground. Mechanisms within the hatch whirred and grated, and the door on the side of the craft facing the sunset slid aside without further ado. Krystal, golden eyes glittering madly in the sunlight, her whole form framed in cold divinity by the doorway, descended onto the beach the way a deity would descend from heaven. The sand splashed aside with each of her footfalls, and the waves bowed before her as she passed. On her left were the black waters of the endless, unfathomable sea. On her right towered the immutable, immortal forms of the trees. Behind her sat the silver chariot that had borne her on her journey to this place. And ahead of her, huddled in the sand like a weeping child, was the prostrate form of a man.

He lay face down in the sand. Rags hung over his back, remains of what clearly had once been a glorious uniform tailored for honored men of war. The fabric had been burned, torn, and caked with blood and salt, but the man beneath these folds was caked in nothing but sand. No blood matted his fur; no burns blemished his figure.

Krystal's feet came to a crunching halt in the sand before this man. She looked sternly down at its mass, watched his hair ripple in the wind the same way the leaves had done. With the tip of her shoe, she hoisted his body over to better see his face. It was somber, dignified. Even in death, his mouth remained unyieldingly closed, his brows unrelentingly furrowed.

Although she did recognize him, no sign of this surfaced on Krystal's features. She knelt down to the man, stealing another glare at that face which seemed to be carved of stone, and reached out gingerly with the fingers of her right hand. They dragged themselves through the coarse tufts of gray on the man's cheek. For a moment, it seemed as though nothing more would transpire, that Krystal would return to her vessel, lift off, and leave this gruesome spectacle to decompose over the centuries.

But Krystal fell over backwards, as if blown back by a gust of wind thrown in her direction by a hurricane. At the same moment, the man opened his eyes and mouth as wide as they would go, and every muscle in his body suddenly drew taught. Color flooded his retinas, and thick, hearty blood coursed through his veins. At first, there was no sound at all as Krystal watched, but slowly, as if some higher power was gradually turning up his volume, a raspy, terrified bellow sounded from Wolf O'Donnell's gaping maw.


	34. Chapter 34

Wolf sat upright in the sand after he managed to swallow his scream. His mind sent impulses to his eyelids in a feeble attempt to blink, but the diminutive muscles within them seemed to have forgotten just how this operation was done. They fluttered for a moment, sluggish in their response. When Wolf's eyes began to water, he mustered his willpower and forced them shut, clamping his eyes shut in a pained grimace that he hoped would replenish the control over his body that was proving so elusive.

He blinked a few more times, and found he was able to do it freely again. The weight of exhaustion began to make his head heavy, as if he was finally at the end of the longest journey of his life… or back at the beginning, Wolf supposed.

The sand shifted off to his left. He saw something vague in his peripheral vision, and turning to see what it was, he saw something he recognized… something beautiful.

"Krystal," Wolf husked, surprised by how dry his mouth was. He swallowed in vain hopes that moisture would be redistributed to his desertified gullet. "What happened?"

"I… I don't know." Krystal, who had been staring quite blankly at Wolf all the while, hadn't moved a muscle since she'd caught herself in a sitting position. She discovered that her own throat was as dry as Wolf's.

"Where am I? And why are you here too?" Wolf asked scratchily, shutting his eyes and putting a hand to his forehead, which felt liable to split down the middle if his headache refused to subside. When he opened his eyes again, he realized that his eye patch was missing. While the eye was never completely blind, he'd always kept it patched because it never saw the world properly. Colors mixed, proportions were skewed, and his perception of the material world was constantly split between the concrete and predictable world as viewed by his undamaged right eye, and a surreal universe of all that was capricious and whimsical on the left.

"I don't know where we are… or why either of us are here," Krystal replied faintly.

With a hand covering his left eye, Wolf turned to look her over. She was older, that was obvious. When she had joined Star Wolf so long ago, she had looked and acted like a girl who had been forced into the adult world. Now… now she was a woman. Her hair was longer, and her eyes were colder and no longer bore that bubbly glimmer of self-confidence and overflowing naiveté that she'd worn like a badge after Fox had pushed her away. Her body was no longer that brilliant shade of indigo that proudly proclaimed her boldness and brashness to the world around her. She was now a dusty hue that was more comparable with the sand around her than with the watery depths behind her.

But he could see the Krystal's natural color pushing itself out from under the sandy façade. Whatever she'd done to cleanse herself of that violet pigment was done some time ago, and Krystal was reverting back to the way she was before she'd washed away the cerulean.

He looked out to his right, to the quickly fading glow of the setting suns.

"Wait," he paused.

Yes, those were the same mountains he'd seen on the horizon the day his _Epiphany_ had dropped into orbit around extra-Lylatian planet SAIR-157-2, the second planet of the 157th brightest star in the constellation Sairin, as seen from Lylat.

"This is the world the _Epiphany_ jumped to," Wolf said, getting shakily to his feet, one hand still covering his bad eye. "We were pursuing one of Kew's battleships…"

Krystal stood up as well to give Wolf a steadying hand. Despite being hunched over in his exhaustion, he was taller than Krystal had remembered. She was buried in his shadow as his silhouetted form blotted out the sunset's dull radiance. The silhouette tore a bit of its ragged uniform and tied it around its blackened head to cover its demented left eye.

That done, Wolf took a moment to bring to the forefront of his mind the remembered events leading up to the present. He stared sightlessly at the ground as all the memories preceding the fall of the _Epiphany _flooded back to him. The other battleship, the standoff at Sargasso, and the FTL transmission both vessels had received both came back into the light of his mind. His brain rushed through the following events as if he were hurriedly flipping aside page after page of a forgotten photo album to jog his memory.

He had listened to the message himself, and when the opposing battleship jumped away without warning to the point of origin, Wolf had given the order to do likewise without a second thought. They'd jumped.

But moments after the ship had rematerialized in orbit over this unexplored, unnamed planet, the officer on sensors reported that the opposing battleship wasn't far away. And that it was warming up weapons.

They fought. They lost. And Wolf and his crew… died.

The facts didn't add up, but Wolf wasted little time worrying about any facts or great mysteries. His gut was took the helm, as always. He had remembered why he had come to this planet in the first place.

Rounding on Krystal and looking down at her, Wolf asked interrupted the silence.

"Where's Fox? And Falco, too? Are they with you?"

"They were," Krystal said, taking a step back.

Wolf moved around and past her, making for the shuttle dancing motionlessly just above the ground in it weightless transgression against the universe's physical laws.

"Come on. We need to find them."

As Wolf stepped up into the open doorframe, Krystal simply watched him, remaining silent and rooted to the spot.

"What, are you brain-dead? Get in here!" he called over his shoulder, moving out of sight towards the front of the craft.

When the main drive engines began spooling, Krystal began to walk back toward it with eyes diverted to the sand below. Her brows furrowed. Was this what had compelled her to return to the planet's surface? Surely not.

It occurred to Krystal just how wrong it seemed the Wolf should wear the Cornerian regalia in the first place. But she supposed the whole universe was upside down these days, and dismissed it from her mind as she climbed back into the shuttle. She'd sail at the mercy of the winds of fate for a while longer.


	35. Chapter 35

"This is Captain Wolf O'Donnell requesting that anyone tuned to this channel respond immediately. Repeat…"

Fox heard the unmistakable voice identifying itself as Wolf speaking in his ear. Looking across the void of space at his wingmate's Cloudrunner, he made eye contact with Falco. Neither of them said anything, but they exchanged baffled looks nonetheless. Not only was this the encrypted channel they used to use as their private communications line for the Star Fox team, but Wolf O'Donnell's was not a voice they'd expected to hear anytime soon, and they especially hadn't expected to hear it preceded by a military honorific over their supposedly secret comm channel.

Fox and Falco had been discussing their next course of action when Wolf made his interruption. After seeing the _Providence_ take a nosedive into a mountain, they'd had very few ideas concerning their next move.

"McCloud, I know you're out there," the rumbling voice in Fox's headset continued. Fox's ears perked when Krystal's muffled voice spoke indistinctly through the static. Wolf's reply came through quite forcefully. "Of course they're alive!" Fox decided it was high time he answered the call.

"We're here. Falco and I are both fine."

Wolf's jovial laughter brought a reluctant smile to Fox's face. Laughter was a sound he hadn't heard from anyone in a very long time.

"Excellent! McCloud, I didn't think I'd ever end up admitting this, but there are times when hearing your wretched voice is music to my ears."

"Unfortunately, you're a filthy bastard," Falco chimed in. "What do you want with us?"

"Hey!" Fox cut him off. "Settle down. We've all got the same goals in mind here."

"He's right," Wolf agreed. "We've got to get back to Lylat. After… how long has it been?" He could be heard consulting with Krystal for a moment. "Whatever, I've lost track of time. The point is—"

Falco interrupted, "Look, man, I don't know about Fox, but I see no reason to go anywhere with you."

"Cool it, Falco." Fox figured it was his cosmic punishment that it should once again fall upon his own shoulders to keep Falco in line.

"I just don't think we should be trusting a son of a bitch like—"

"Shut your damn beak! Just shut up for once!"

Although Falco could be seen seething in his seat, he was no longer speaking. That was the important thing. Fox reinitiated the conversation they'd been having with Wolf. "How are we getting out of here? Where are you?"

Wolf picked up again, "I've been flying around like a drunk trying to get hold of you on the comm. As for getting out of here, the shuttle I'm flying as we speak has FTL drives. If we make rendezvous somewhere, you two could hitch a ride with Krystal and I back to Lylat."

"What about Powalski?" Fox asked.

After a pause, Wolf inquired tentatively, "What about him?"

"He could still be alive. We can't just leave him here."

"Sure we can," Falco spoke up again.

"You keep quiet!"

Wolf broke through, "Slow down, what's this about Leon…" He broke off as Krystal's voice began mumbling amidst the background static. "The _Providence_ is here too?" he asked incredulously.

"It _was_ here," Fox replied. "It made a crash landing about ten minutes ago."

Wolf remained silent at this.

"Why don't we just land somewhere?" Falco asked pointedly. "We can talk about this face to face rather than keep up with this interminable radio chatter. It's confusing as hell."

"That's the best idea I've heard so far," Wolf said soberly. "I need a moment to think about this anyway. You'll get the coordinates once I've found a suitable spot to put down." And with that, he signed off, leaving Fox and Falco in uneasy radio silence as they awaited the promised coordinates.

Falco was the first to break the ice.

"Why is it that you always insist on making deals with devils?"

"I don't want to discuss this, Falco."

"I don't care," Falco's voice spat in Fox's ear via his headpiece. "Have you already forgotten what that bastard did to us?"

Fox didn't answer. He felt Falco's eyes staring at the side of his head, but he still wouldn't turn to look him in the eye. Falco, did after all, bring up a valid point…

"Don't tell me you've _forgiven_ him for what happened on Titania," Falco pressed.

Fox lips drew tight as he recollected the events. "Wolf was traveling with us. He was on _our_ side..."

"He was on his own side, Fox."

"He did what he did to end the war. It was in Corneria's best interests."

"Are you _defending_ him? Fox, he _used_ us! He took everything he needed and abandoned us in the dead of night! Then, a week later, we see the headlines declaring that Star Wolf had single-handedly ended the war. The rest is fucking history."

Fox ran his fingers through his hair. This had always been something he'd done in times of uncertainty, but it felt different now than it used to. Before the Anglar War had ended, he'd always kept his hair trim and shampoo-fresh. But, over time, it had grown long and greasy, at times long enough and thick enough to obstruct his vision, something he never would have let it do in the past. When he ran his fingers through it now, they encountered more than a few tangles, and they felt unnaturally unctuous when they emerged. It had been this way ever since his life had begun its slow descent into oblivion, leaving Fox standing alone, holding all the pieces in his arms like a would-have-been mother holding her stillborn child. If he'd had to pinpoint the day that this descent began, he would have admitted reluctantly that it had been the day that Wolf had run off without him, after Fox had so freely given him so much trust.

In a way, Wolf had been Fox's father, even for just a few days. But just as so many other children in the cold universe knew, most fathers don't have the balls to stick around.

Fox let his head rest in his hands, knowing Falco to be silently exulting in his Cloudrunner, having taken his small revenge on Fox for the rebukes he'd given Falco earlier. Even so, the doubts that now filled Fox's mind like so many devilish imps remained painfully present.

His ruminations were cut short when a set of coordinates blinked onto his console.

After a moment, Falco asked, "Well? Are we following them?"

"We have no other way of getting home. He has an FTL ship and we don't."

"It's up to you… I suppose," Falco sounded almost penitent. "You're the leader."

"We'll do it, then. It's not like we have anything to lose. And if we do get screwed… whatever. It's not like we're new to that."

Fox brought his Cloudrunner down and prepared for reentry. His radar told him that Falco was just behind him. As they descended through the atmosphere, Fox found himself mesmerized by the coruscating streaks of flame that engulfed his cockpit. Soon there would be a reckoning, and before it all ended, he knew there would be a day when he and Wolf would finally sit down and talk about everything man-to-man. Until that day, everything Fox did involving Wolf would be shrouded on both sides by lies, just as he was now shrouded by the flames of reentry.

Fox wondered if he would like what he would see when the flames finally dissipated, and the lies were finally torn away.


	36. Chapter 36

"Fuck damnit!" Falco was always unusually articulate at times like these.

He and Fox stood in a clearing, combing their surroundings with their eyes. There were trees on all sides, forming a sort of wall that appeared as impenetrable as brick. Behind them sat their Cloudrunners, which seemed to emanate steam as the residual heat generated during reentry radiated into the humid air. The two pilots also saw each other, both with their headsets in hand. But it was what neither of them saw that set Falco to his haphazard use of expletives.

"They didn't show," Fox said. He had half-expected this, but wasn't as angry as Falco was. Quote contrary; Fox's expression was one of I-guess-we-had-it-coming.

"Dirty bastard. I'll bet he just sent us down here so we wouldn't get in the way while he jumped home."

"Krystal was with him too…" Fox reasoned with himself more than with Falco. "I'm sure there's more to all this than we can guess at."

"Whatever. The point is, that son of a bitch still has a ticket home, and we're still stuck on an unnamed planet." He turned on his heel and began walking back to his Cloudrunner. Fox lingered a moment, gazing into the black depths of the forest around them.

"I'll bet it does too have a name… we just don't know it," he muttered to himself.

Despite being thicker than the average automobile the trees each seemed to sway in the warm breeze like reeds. The effect was disorienting, and formed an unsettling backdrop to Fox's and Falco's grim circumstance. Wolf had done what he was always best at: leaving others shit out of luck. Fox had once again placed some small expectation on the man, and had once again been disappointed. However, the sting wasn't as severe the second time it was served, and for this he was thankful. Perhaps someday he would stop feeling surprise at the depravity of others.

There was something to be said for faith in your fellow man. But there was also something to be said for knowing in advance what to expect from those on whom this faith would be wasted.

"Bastard," Fox whispered. He was beginning to empathize with Falco. Wolf had ever been, and always would be, good for nothing.

Having barely turned around and started back for his spacecraft, Fox was stopped by what sounded like the whine of a g-diffuser.

Pulling his headset down over his ears, he asked Falco quietly, "Can you hear that?"

Falco replied after a moment, "It's a ship."

"A small one."

"Like the one Wolf and Krystal were in."

They exchanged expressions of incredulity as the sound grew nearer.

Then, bursting out from above the trees to blot out the stars with its wide visage, a large shuttlecraft came quite abruptly into view. But it wasn't the craft Krystal had commandeered earlier; rather, it was a…

"Captain's boat?" Falco asked no one in particular.

He and Fox backed away as the ship began to descend over the clearing. The gravity drives subtly warped their vision as it neared their eyes. It made contact with the ground, where its landing gear sank a few inches into the moist soil below it. When the airlock depressurized with a hiss, Fox, wary of who or what might emerge from the spacecraft pointed both his own blaster and Krystal's pistol at the unopened doorway.

As it began to move aside, Fox made incidental note of the portal's carefully polished steel frame, which glistened unnaturally in the starlight.

When he saw the silhouette of a shriveled man in a wheelchair, he fought the urge to let his guard down, keeping his weapons level.

"Powalski?" Falco cried from across the clearing.

But before the uniformed commander could answer, Fox's ears caught another noise approaching them from the forest behind them. He whirled, aiming his guns in the direction of the sound, despite the heavy presentiment in his heart that he knew who this fourth arrival would be.

Wolf O'Donnell emerged as if from nowhere to join the three already gathered in the clearing. He stumbled to a stop, his already tattered naval uniform stained by fresh sweat. His chest heaved, and as he caught his breath he looked in silence at the three other men seemingly frozen in place, Falco at his Arwing, Leon in the airlock of his captain's boat, and Fox right across from him, standing between them all at the center of the clearing floor.

A subtle scraping sound signified that Falco had drawn a weapon, perhaps smelling on the air the battle that was brewing. Another glance back at the airlock told Fox that Leon was fingering firearms of his own. He himself felt the heat that stirred the stillness of the night, the invisible fire that connected all of them in resentment and even hatred. Falco still glared daggers at Wolf and Leon. Leon still looked down on Fox with a fierce disapproval, and he viewed Falco with a sideways scowl. Wolf could even be seen to stare disgustedly at Leon. It seemed each of them had something against each of the others, and their enmity had spun itself in a tangled, senseless web of murderous contempt.

Converged on this spot as if guided there by forces beyond their grasp, they all felt the fear and confusion that leads so often to needless conflict.

But for all of their animosity, Fox was the first to set it aside.

He dropped his weapons to the ground, where they clattered noisily like so much discarded rubbish. Looking into the eyes of Wolf, the only one who was unarmed, Fox turning his palms up to solidify the unspoken truce.

After a few moments, during which Fox almost began to lose his confidence, Leon also tossed his weapons onto the ground before him. Falco could be heard returning his firearm to its place.

Four souls had been reconciled without a word, at least for one night.

The skies above them lit up, as if illuminated by fire.

"Micrometeors," Fox explained to the rest.

"This ship has a jump drive," Leon offered quietly.

Wolf staggered towards the open airlock, and Falco also abandoned his Cloudrunner to board the ship that would bear him and his comrades home at last. In an uncharacteristic display of goodwill, Falco even retrieved Leon's weapons from where they had been thrown, and delivered them back to their owner with a nod.

Fox felt that some sort of triumph had just occurred. Even so, he knew that a great many of their problems remained unsolved, and questions innumerable remained unanswered. How they had all come to the same clearing at the same time, for instance. More pressingly, Fox couldn't help but wonder where Krystal was. Presumably, she had jumped away with the ship she had taken now that she no longer shared it with Wolf. Where? Why? He could only wonder.

Such trifles aside, Fox knew that the present posed threats just as imminent as the ones the future held in store for them; first and foremost was the fact that a micrometeor storm was bearing down on them, forcing them all to either take cover under a common roof or die. Perhaps the fact that they had managed to gather under that common roof without tearing each other apart ought to be considered a monumental achievement.

"Fox, come on," Falco beckoned from the doorway of the airlock, with what appeared to be a trace of a grin. "We're going home."

Fox also allowed himself a grin. He bent to pick up his blaster, and returned it to its holster. He jogged back to the captain's boat, where Falco helped him up into the ship to join Wolf and Leon. Behind him he saw the fiery rain of meteors begin its ravaging reign over the forest. What a wonder that the trees managed to survive this pounding time after time.

The airlock door slid back into place as the raging din grew in volume. Through a porthole Fox took one last look out into the clearing. Through the chaos he saw the treeline, sturdy and immutable. The Cloudrunners remained where he and Falco had left them, forsaken by their masters to remain on the desolate planet's surface, perhaps for millennia. And Fox also saw that he, in his haste, had neglected to retrieve Krystal's pistol from the ground. It too would remain here with the Cloudrunners, Fox supposed. Even so, it looked so pitiable there on the ground, lying prostrate and helpless to protect itself as the sky literally fell upon it, bearing with it the fires of hell in all their retributive tribulation. The pistol, forgotten and alone, would take the beating whether or not it wanted to, and Fox doubted its chances for survival.

As the ship's engines spooled, Fox turned his back on the porthole, and looked at his new traveling companions, unexpected as they were.

"It's time to go."


	37. Chapter 37

The bar was a quiet place on the night the four men decided a drink was in order. The host brought them across the deserted barroom to seat them a lonely table near the back. Although the table was designed for four, it had only three chairs. Those of the four who had legs took their seats; the one without wheeled into the fourth space. The host asked what they would be having to drink.

"Whiskey," Wolf said without looking up.

The host paused before asking, "Will the rest of you have the same?"

A long moment passed before anyone answered. All four of them seemed to be almost sedated, with their heads sagging and their eyes held slackened and unblinking, still weary from all that they had seen.

"I'll have water, actually," Falco murmured.

"Likewise," Leon agreed.

Wolf sighed before throwing in his own towel, "I suppose we're just having waters, all around."

Fox looked up into Wolf's face, studying the bags under his eyes and ragged uniform hanging from his shoulders, caked with sand and mud from a planet so far away. Fox was reminded of all that he'd left behind there. Here he was in the present, back on his home world with the only companions the universe had to offer him, but it no longer felt like home to him. It was an alien place, and he was an alien in it.

"I want the whiskey," Fox said without looking away. "Bring the bottle."


	38. Chapter 38

Falco brought his fingers to his forehead and kneaded at the deep pain that festered within the depths of his brain. The headache had begun after they started the journey back to Corneria. The trip had only lasted a few hours, but it took its toll.

He was exhausted, and every fiber of his body felt it. His travels had taken him from Corneria to Kew to Hell and back, and a good night's sleep had eluded him since he left. He'd figured a drink would be just the thing to calm his nerves and numb his headache, but after sitting down at the table, his mind was changed by forces unknown. Alcohol never really was his thing.

The host came back with a pitcher of ice water, a bottle of the hard stuff, and four glasses. Falco watched as Wolf poured the water into three of the glasses, and watched even closer as Fox poured his liquor. He drank it straight.

"Slow down; I don't want to be dragging you out of here by your ass," Falco muttered to him.

He didn't answer.

Falco wasn't new to seeing Fox drink. Every time something bad happened to him, every time that woman of his left him, he'd be reeling around the Great Fox with a bottle in his hand for the next few weeks, moping in his room for days, puking in the hallways and pissing in his bed. It always fell to Falco to lead him back to his room should he wander out, and it always fell to Falco to take away his drinks when they had work to do, to slap his best friend in the face and tell him straight that he was a mess, to shout violently at the closest thing he'd ever had to family.

And here it was, happening again.

It occurred to Falco that he couldn't remember a time in the last _decade_ he'd slept well, and figured he'd had this headache the whole time as well.


	39. Chapter 39

Wolf sat just as quietly as the rest of them, swirling his water first clockwise, then counterclockwise in its glass. He contemplated all that they had done, all that they had failed to accomplish. Fishing an ice cube out of his water, he bit down with his teeth and chewed it until it dissolved. The cold fluid trickled down his throat, defeated.

Fox had taken a good few inches off the top of his bottle, so it was no surprise when it was he who finally broke the table's unanimous silence.

"Wolf, when you showed up… with that ship from Kew. What happened? Why did you come?"

Wolf sighed. This was not a story he wanted to be reciting. He was not proud of its ending, and so many of his men… all of them...

"Well?" Fox prodded.

"Fine," Wolf growled. "The _Epiphany_ was stationed at the Sargasso station. The Navy had been stockpiling munitions and supplies there, ever since the Anglar conflict. They figured it was out of the way, and it was supposed to be the rendezvous point where the Navy would regroup should Corneria be invaded. Its location isn't exactly public knowledge, but the admirals decided it would be in our best interests to keep a battleship stationed there at all times."

He finagled another ice cube out of his water, chewing it much as he had the first one.

"Apparently, the Navy has a leak. Not minutes after the message was sent out that a Kew-Corneria jumpgate had been fired upon, an enemy battleship dropped out of FTL right on top of us. Apparently they were expecting the place to be left unguarded, because they never fired on us, and they didn't make any attempt to communicate with us either. The standoff went on for a few hours before we received a garbled message from an unknown source."

"That was us," Falco interrupted.

"Well, the opposing battleship decoded it before we did. They jumped out, and we followed them. Once they had us out there in no man's land, they opened up." He chewed another ice cube. "I don't know who fired first. Turned out they were way better armed than we were. You know the rest."

That they did. Silence once more fell over the table.

"How did you get out?" Fox asked awkwardly.

Wolf didn't make eye contact.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know."

The host turned on a television behind the bar. A newscaster spoke with a short tone.

"It hasn't even been twenty-four hours since the jumpgate was first attacked, and already the firing has begun. Kew's navy has proven to have much more firepower than we had initially expected, and the battle is still raging over Katina. At the time of the first attack, most of the Navy was stationed in orbit over the planet, and we're told somewhere around eighty percent of the fleet is involved in this conflict. We'll be keeping you updated as we get more news."

The host turned the broadcast off again, and resumed his position behind the bar, devoid of visitors as it was.

The silence around the table in the back picked up once more. Fox poured himself another glass of whiskey, despite having already drunk half the bottle. Wolf ran out of ice to chew, and instead gazed into his glass of water idly. Falco finished off his water, but didn't bother to refill it. Leon, however, was still gazing at the blank monitor as if the newscaster were still speaking.

"Excuse me," he said, wheeling himself out from the table. "I think I need some… fresh air."

Breathing heavily, he wheeled himself across the room, and out the front door. The other three only had a moment to think before they heard the gunshot ring out, echoing off the buildings in the street. Wolf looked grimly out the window, across which was spattered a fine misting of Leon Powalski's blood.


	40. Chapter 40

There was a time when, had Wolf met Fox in person, the two of them would have snapped together in a fistfight like two magnets of opposite polarity. There was a time when Fox would not have been caught dead under the influence. There was also a time when Wolf would have cared upon hearing news of Leon's suicide. As the three of them walked down an empty and silent street in downtown Corneria, it was clear that this was not any of those times.

The streets were brightly lit, and the sidewalks on which the three of them walked were clear and clean. Had Fox been sober, he would have noted the stark difference between the glistening face of Corneria City and the greasy alleys that were strung across Kew like a prostitute's fishnet stockings.

Due to Wolf's stubborn unwillingness to support Fox, who could barely stand, the job fell to Falco, who bore one of Fox's arms over his own shoulder despite having a hole in his leg. It wasn't long before Falco suggested they find a hotel and decide what to do once they'd rested. Wolf agreed. The first hotel they came to was a relatively small one, and as they entered the modestly furnished lobby, the attendant woke up from where he had been sleeping on his desk when heard the doors open.

Being unused to accommodating strange guests in the wee hours of the morning, the man did his best to pull himself together. One of the guests looked to be military, but he might not have noticed for the tears and stains that had reduced a once grand outfit into a rag that barely hung from Wolf's shoulders. Next to him was a disheveled, woozy drunk, being supported by someone whose leg was wrapped in blood-soaked cloth.

"Ahem. How may I help you… sirs?" the receptionist asked as normally as he found possible.

"We just need a room," Falco said, out of breath.

"Well, we have a few rooms open on the top floor."

"Anywhere is fine, just give us a key," grumbled Wolf.

"Alright, alright," the attendant said, making a few keystrokes on a console nearby. "Can I get a name?"

Falco and Wolf looked at each other.

"Do you have money?" asked Falco.

"No…" Wolf said, starting to look concerned. Falco cursed under his breath.

"Hold on a moment," Wolf told the clerk while Falco started rummaging through Fox's pockets. Falco produced a wallet, and pulled a card out from it, handing it to the waiting receptionist.

He looked at the card for a moment, and furrowed his brow before entering the card number.

"I'll just put the room under… McCloud." The man, looking a little unsettled, handed the card back along with a key. "You'll be in 312."

It was an awkward elevator ride up to the third floor. By the time they'd reached their room, Falco finally dumped his friend onto a bed.

"I'm taking a hot shower," Wolf declared.

"And what are you changing into?" Falco asked pointedly.

Wolf paused before muttering, "Damn it." He clearly ended up deciding against the shower, because he slumped in an armchair and promptly joined Fox in the realm of dreams.

Falco was left on the floor, leaning up against the bed. He considered sleeping himself, but his leg was in enough pain that sleep wasn't liable to happen. He pulled Fox's wallet back out of his pocket. Falco smiled a little at the thought that the cheeky bastard had clung onto the wallet even when it seemed as though their lives were ending.

Opening the wallet, Falco found a few crumpled receipts from bars, Fox's identification, some change, and a newspaper clipping. It was yellowed, and in the in the grainy, black and white photograph Falco saw his younger self standing next to James McCloud. The headline read, "Single father adopts child orphaned by gang violence."

Tossing the wallet aside, Falco instantly regretted opening it up. He drew himself up and went to the sink. He filled one of the available glasses with water and drank it. It was bitter to Falco's taste.

When his thoughts turned from the past to the present, he grew even more burdened. Where were they to go next? What fresh hell would tomorrow bear? Falco put a hand on his gored thigh, and considered walking out the hotel door right then and there. He'd done it before, why not strike out on his own once again?

He shook his head. He couldn't do it, not again. Every time he left, he always hated himself for it, and always came running back eventually, putting on his mask of self-assurance and arrogance in a pitiful attempt to hide his weakness from his teammates.

Falco opened the curtains to get a look at the city, but found that he couldn't see past the skyscraper next door. He sighed, and eventually resigned himself to lying down on the floor and staring at the ceiling, not knowing what else to do with himself.


End file.
